QB 2023 Auto update option grayed out

I understand how important to give you an option to turn off the automatic update and decide when you want to do it, kerry. I hear your sentiments and recognize on how it affects you and your business. 

Updating QuickBooks is necessary to protect your financial data from potential vulnerabilities and ensure a more stable and secure software environment. Moreover, you get enhancements to existing features and the addition of new functionalities from time to time. 

Let's send your feedback straight to our product engineers. You can input a few details about your insights.
 

1. Go to the Help menu in your company file.
2. Select Send Feedback Online and choose Product Suggestion.
3. Then, click the Send Feedback button.
    

As a workaround, you can turn off the updates by locating the the update folder. Open the Update QuickBooks Desktop window> Options> locate the update folder under Download location.

Then, navigate to the folder and delete the contents in there. Once done, deny writes permissions to the folder. Right click the folder> Properties> Security>Edit.  Afterward, you have the option to change permissions. Make sure to hit the Apply button to reflect the changes.

I have included this article that provides more information on automatic downloads: Update QuickBooks Desktop to the latest release.

Please feel free to share any additional concerns or questions you may have. I am available to provide you with the necessary details.

Thanks for you input-glad I am not the only one that is frustrated with Intuit.  This issue of total control and charging us a large fee every year now is so messed up.  What a sick why of doing business.

Thanks again-Kerry

I want to thank you for trying to help but just so you know "Work arounds" are not a good solution.  I would go as far as saying it's a copout of just fixing the issue.  Come on 2018 to 2023 going into 2024 soon and this issue has not been corrected.  BAD business-REALLY BAD!!  I have followed your instructions to report this but it looks like hundreds (if not more) have already reported this-----Intuit just does not care-it's messed up in so many ways.  Intuit CFOs CEOs etc. are sitting at their desk laughing at all of us.  It's so said that kindness and respect is no long with the business of Intuit.  It's there way or the highway.  I am sure they sleep happy on are had earned money.  So messed up in everyway.  Stop sending out "work arounds" and just correct the matter and leave us alone.

Intuit FIX THIS.

The instructions in the "Update Quickbooks Desktop" dialog state:

"Select the Options tab to turn off Automatic Updates"

Yes, the radio button to turn it off is grayed out.

There is NO scenario where Intuit has justification for forcing updates on me and my clients. Period. Intuit is among the LAST companies I would trust with making security decisions on my behalf. Stick to your knitting.

Hey everyone,

I just updated our orgs Quickbooks Desktop Premiere to 2023 from 2022 and found that the Auto update radio buttons are both greyed out, to my surprise as i did not see anything about this in the release notes.

This may not be the case for everyone but I think I found out how to prevent auto updates for my situation.

I simply needed to "Unmark All" for the setting below, "Select the update you want Quickbooks desktop to download automatically".

I manually checked for updates and saw the time stamp on all update types change, and the setting itself persisted.
Logically, this means that when/if autoudpate runs, it wont find anything. But I havent done any verification yet.

If anyone has a good way to verify this works and doesnt cause other issues, please let us know.

Thanks

This is pretty interesting for a hosted solution.  We never know when the updates will come in but when they do users get a message the next time they try and logon.  It locks them out until an admin can process.  I have multiple clients and versions of QB.  At best it's very disruptive.  At worst when I'm on vacation and my clients have two days to run payroll... well it's a deal breaker,  for LAN users I've had to give up my QB Admin privileges and that's proved to be highly problematic.

I've spoke to Summithosting, Hostway and QuickBooks support and they offer no assistance.  See the lockout message below?

The feedback I have is that my clients will moving on to more reliable products if this issue isn't addressed ASAP.

Not so good for me when my entire practice revolves around one product,

What a clown show

The solution is very simple.

1. Just rename the qbupdate.exe program to something else eg qbupdateold.exe
2. Profit !!!

This program is found in this folder

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Intuit\QuickBooks\QBUpdate

When you desire updates again, reverse the name changes.

the program file just repopulates and the automatic updates continue to run locking user out, again.

I called Intuit again today and they advised me it's not a problem for most users.  Accordingly I should just get use to my users getting locked out and not being able to work for days at a time.  What a clown show!

Hi there, @Lawrence. I can see you're having an error in your QuickBooks Desktop account.

First, ensure that you have a stable internet connection. Sometimes, a poor or intermittent connection can cause update errors. Next, try restarting your computer and then launching QuickBooks again. This simple step can often resolve temporary glitches.

QuickBooks Tool Hub is a doctor file that can fix common errors encountered company file issues on your QuickBooks Desktop account.

1. Close QuickBooks.
2. Download the most recent version (1.6.0.3) of the QuickBooks Tool Hub.
3. Open the file you downloaded (QuickBooksToolHub.exe).
4. Follow the on-screen steps to install and agree to the terms and conditions.
5. Once done, double-click the icon on your Windows desktop to open the tool hub.

If you need additional fixes with QuickBooks Desktop update error, see this page for more information: Fix QuickBooks Desktop Update Errors.

If you need further assistance, we are always here to share references with your QuickBooks Desktop company. 

That would be all sweet and tidy, if the darn thing didn't first simply crash in the middle of something. When you restart QB, it takes forever, just spinning it's little circle, then simply does nothing.  When you open the task manager, you notice, there are TWO "Quickbooks" entries, and one of them is, guess what....DING-DING, UPDATE MANAGER. Idiots.

This is easy to solve too. Just get another file eg QBMsgMgr.exe (its in the same folder), copy and paste it. Then falsely rename the pasted file (QBMsgMgr - Copy.exe) to qbupdate.exe.

Profit again!

Does this solution you have above, have to be done for each company file database?  We have over 30.  I have Admin rights but I am the only one and do not want to have to do this for everyone. We also need our staff to be able to continue working so this is very frustrating as we are still working in a hybrid in/out of the office.

I just discovered the same thing.  There is no longer a way to turn off automatic updates.  Recently one of our sales guys needed to get a quote out to a customer, it was 9:30 at night and before he could simply send the customer a quote big brother QuickBooks forced him to update QB on our corporate server!  Does the design engineer/numb skull at Quickbooks who disabled this feature understand the implications to an IT group of forced updates like this?  

To me if we as customers we don't update our QB to receive security patches shame on us but for QB to force updates anytime of day without option to delay or turn off then QB should be liable for bringing down our corporate server or other wise disrupting our business operations.  

This is ridiculous. 

Here is the solution I am testing (Windows):

1. Disable qbupdate.exe using Task Manager > Startup.
Intuit hides the Startup service by naming it Program and disabling the Properties option. We can get around this.  In Task Manager > Startup tab, right-click any column header and select Command Line. The new columns reveals the full program path and program name.  Now you can identify the Startup entry and disable it.  (While you are there, I suggest you also disable Intuit Data Protect if you are not using Intuit's cloud backup service.)

2. Disable qbupdatemonitorservice.exe using Services.

While in Task Manager, click on the Services tab, where you'll see QBUpdateMonitorService, as well as other QuickBooks services.  You can stop qbupdatemonitorservice from this window, but it'll start again at next reboot.  So instead, right-click QBUpdateMonitorService and select Open Services.  Find QBUpdateMonitorService, right-click and select Properties. Under Startup type, select Disabled.  Under Service status, click Stop.  Finally click Apply and then OK.  (Again, I suggest doing the same for QBIDPService if you are not using Intuit Data Protect).

Reboot your computer and I think this should block QB from auto-updating.

What appears to be working for me at the moment is a renaming of C:\Program Files\Common Files\Intuit\QuickBooks\QBUpdate to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Intuit\QuickBooks\QBUpdate to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Intuit\QuickBooks\QBUpdate to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Intuit\QuickBooks\QBUpdate-RENAMED-BY-STEVE for the folder name. It is an easy thing to reverse, and QBES doesn't appear to be finding it at the moment. - Steve

Realized after reading that, that I had the original path in there twice, so here it is again a bit cleaned up.
What appears to be working for me at the moment is a renaming of the QBUpdate folder:

Original: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Intuit\QuickBooks\QBUpdate
to
Modified: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Intuit\QuickBooks\QBUpdate-RENAMED-BY-STEVE

It is an easy thing to reverse, and QBES doesn't appear to be finding it at the moment. - Steve

We're finding that QuickBooks Enterprise 2023 is recreating the QBUpdate folder when an admin logs into the server and attempts to open the company file, so be aware of that. We're having folks kill the update prompt in the task manager once it launches, then they are able to open QBES. We have integrations and requirements that we have to test against each version before deploying, so this is really becoming a pain.