Windows has a built-in maintenance mode that runs automatically on a daily schedule. Generally, this schedule is maintained by Windows itself. When needed, you can set a custom automatic maintenance schedule. Of course, like many things in Windows, you can easily disable automatic maintenance. Let me show you how.
In case you don’t know, automatic maintenance does a bunch of things in the background. Those include but not limited to installing updates, scheduled security scanning, system diagnostics, etc. Simply put, automatic maintenance is pretty important. However, on older systems and laptops, the automatic maintenance mode can consume a lot of system resources. This makes the system overheat, slower, and unresponsive. In those situations, you can disable automatic maintenance mode in Windows.
Caution:
- Only disable automatic maintenance mode if it is your last resort and is absolutely necessary.
- Before making any change to the registry, create registry backup. This helps you restore it when needed.
Jump to:
- Import reg keys method (easy)
- Manual method
Download Reg Keys to Disable Automatic Maintenance
Though disabling automatic maintenance mode is nothing hard, you need to use the registry editor to do it. So, to make things easier, I’ve created the registry keys for you. All you have to do is download and execute the files and you are done. If you don’t want to do that, follow the second method which shows the manual method.
Before disabling the automatic maintenance mode, you first need to uncheck an option in the Maintenance settings page.
1. Search for Control Panel in the start menu and open it. In the Control Panel, go to Security & Maintenance > Maintenance. Here, click on the Change maintenance settings link.
2. Now, uncheck the “Allow scheduled maintenance to wake up my computer at the scheduled time” option. Click on the Ok button to save changes.
3. Download this file and extract the .reg files in the zip file on to your desktop. Since we want to disable automatic maintenance mode, double-click on the DisableMaintenanceMode.reg file.
4. You will see a merge notification. Click on the Yes button to continue.
5. Reboot Windows and the automatic maintenance mode will be disabled automatically.
If you want to enable automatic maintenance mode, simply execute the EnableMaintenanceMode.reg file. Also, don’t forget to enable the option we unchecked in the second step.
Alternative Manual Method
If you want to, you can manually edit the registry to disable maintenance mode. All we have to do is create a single key. Follow the steps as is and you will be good.
1. Search for Control Panel in the start menu and open it. In the Control Panel, go to Security & Maintenance > Maintenance. Here, click on the Change maintenance settings link.
2. Now, uncheck the “Allow scheduled maintenance to wake up my computer at the scheduled time” option. Click on the Ok button to save changes.
3. Open the run dialog box, type regedit, and press Enter to open the Registry editor.
4. In the registry editor, go to the following location. You can copy and paste the below path in the address bar and press Enter.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Schedule\Maintenance
5. Here we need to create a new Dword value. So, right-click on the right panel and select New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value.
6. Name the new value as MaintenanceDisabled.
7. Next, double-click on the newly created value. Enter 1 in the value data field and click on the Ok button to save changes.
8. To apply the changes, reboot Windows.
That is it. After rebooting, the automatic maintenance will be disabled.
If you ever want to re-enable the scheduled maintenance mode, delete the key we just created earlier.
That is it.