Hey there, thank you for the script. I have a question on changing additional lines in the file (e.g. HiddenEnabled). When manually downloading updates, there are several hidden items that are installed; regardless of what you select. An example of this is the major release downloads. When downloading updates to troubleshoot an issue, I don't want to install the major release; as this often requires a restart and locks users out of QB. 

If you could give me some guidance on how to add additional line changes in the script, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you.

I have been told by support today that this is a baked in option since the 2021 version. She tested in 2021, 2022, and 2023 and said, as we all have experienced that this occurs. Going back to the 2017, 2018 versions it works as it should. Someone needs to start a class action against Intuit. I would if I knew how.

So if I am understanding all of the post on this issue is that QB's 2023 has no intension to fix this issue.  Just letting Intuit know that having the option to turn off the automatic Update really needs to be addressed so we as owners of this subscription can control when the updates take place.  With me stating this I want to point out that I am finding that QB's 2023 updated on it's own 4 times in one hour which caused issues while I was in QB's and the problems then caused me to delay in my production.  This is not okay.  Updates should NOT interfere during normal working hours.  I just am not understanding why or what is behind the reasoning that Intuit has with this matter.  Just fix the problem and stop wasting all of our time.

Great job Intuit.  Your techs on this forum have no idea what people are talking about and have no ability to fix or escalate things.  Still an ongoing issue and the automatic update again caused a system crash today.  Complete B.S. that you can't turn off automatic updates.  I've called support and put in development feedback, and still nothing.  What a joke of a company.

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

yaserahmad117 --

I've had all the items "unmarked" for updated in the options tab and it STILL did an auto-update.

The problem we're running into regarding this issue is with the WebConnector -- if the update is running at the time it will kill the webconnector application trying to run with result: "Waiting.....Another service is updating."  We're finding that the apps in the WebConnector hang indefinitely and thus hangs the WebConnector.  Reboot corrects the problem.  After reading another post, I have now disabled the 'QBUpdateMonitorService" from running.  We'll see if that solves this issue.

Did you get any solution?

Hello, @hmJakir27. 

Can you tell me more about the issue that you're trying to get a resolution? This will enable me to offer you an exact solution to your concern.

To add more details, simply click on the Reply button below.

I'm looking forward to hearing from you soon! Take care, and have a wonderful day!

QB apparently does not give any solutions unless it financially benefits them. I have cancelled my subscription after they nearly doubled it this year.

WTF - no disable of auto update in 2023?

I've yet to see it with 2023 but with 2020 auto update Intuit (fukers) would auto update on a business domain environment and then create a countdown of how many times you could run QB before it would lock you out.

Every time it would cause business disruption in the middle of business hours making business manager reach out to IT.  HELLO INTUIT?!  Normal staff in a domain environment don't have admin rights to install your downloaded / staged update.  IT and/or business updates on their schedule - not yours.  Invasive and wrong.  As wrong as new subscription model costing 325% more than QB2020.  Its time for mass Intuit exodus.

I remember with several airline companies getting business disruption due to Win10 forceful update process and Microsoft got sued. 

And then theirs Intuit scan function on DB manager breaking all NTFS security giving the entire server data drive "everyone" permission.  Don't even need to be a domain member after scan.  Bring in your home laptop - Every file accessible.  What's your employer CEO up to?

create a scheduled task to clear out the contents of the qbdownload33 directory, with any exceptions of course.  i.e., paysub.ini if needed for payroll.

have it run every 15 minutes.  anything automatically downloaded will be removed and users aren't faced with update prompt on logon.

hope that helps.

I ran across this issue today. I was able to modify the properties of the "No" radio button on the Automatic Update window using WinSpy++. Here's a video on how to do it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jn6-7pfH2s

I have not confirmed if that actually works, but according to QuickBooks it says Automatic Updates are disabled.

I've tried to read the previous posts and it appears that even if it appears that automatic updates is off in the UI, it's still going to update whenever it wants, causing unwanted disruption.  I had followed the prior advice to change QBChan.dat BackgroundEnabled=0 and that value remained in place and the UI shows 'automatic updates' as 'off' and under Options tab, Automatic Update options remain grayed out along with 'select the updates you want QB Desktop to download automatically' (the items that are checked or unchecked can't be changed).

We're running QB on a cloud server (AWS) running Windows Server 2019 and several users run QB Premiere Plus simultaneously.  Even with automatic updates off, I can't prevent the dreaded 'QB Utility' (or sometimes 'requires administrator privileges') prompt that users get when they try to open QB and since they are not admin on the server, they can't run it and work flow is halted until a server admin such as myself can launch QB and get past the QB Utility prompt.  I need a way to stop that from running and I posted another thread in the QB community https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/other-questions/qb-utility-randomly-but-regularly-... but never got a useful response.

I wish you didn't have to go through all these hurdles when working with QuickBooks, @danno3. I'm here to provide some details and direct you to the best support to handle this immediately.

In most versions of QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT), automatic updates are enabled by default. QuickBooks will check for updates when you open the software. If an update is available, you'll be prompted to install it. These updates can include fixes to improve tasks such as tracking money, paying employees, and preparing taxes etc.

However, please note that you cannot turn off the automatic updating feature if you're using the QBDT 2023 version. While this functionality isn't available at the moment. That said, I recommend sending your thoughts to our Product Development Team about having the option to turn it off. Here's how you can submit feedback:

1. Click the Help menu located at the top.
2. Select Send Feedback Online, then click Product Suggestion.
3. Type in your feedback or feature request.
4. Click the Send Feedback button.

Otherwise, if you have the other versions of QBDT and still don't see the option, I suggest contacting our Customer Care Team. One of our experts has the necessary tools to check your account securely and perform a screen-sharing session to investigate this behavior further. Check out this article for their support hours: Contact QuickBooks Desktop support.

I'm always around and ready to help if you have more questions about managing your QBDT account. I'll be here to lend a helping hand.

Has this issue been looked into by Intuit Quickbooks? I just installed version 24 Enterprise and we still can not turn off the auto update. Option is still Greyed out. This issue is a problem for us because after every forced Quickbook update sent out prevents multi users from logging into Quickbooks until Admin user logs in first. All multi users have to wait before able to login. 

They clearly don't care.  Come January, it will be 4 years since I started this post.  We should all be pushing our customers to consider alternative accounting software with actual support.

I canceled my rapaciuosly priced Desktop subscription that I was forced into and using an older version offline until I can shop a different software with Devs and support that listen to the end user.

Qb already forced me into an outrageously priced yearly subscription for my desktop version. I cancelled of course.  I'm looking for other software with actual support and devs that listen to the end user.

We also decided not to move to their online options . . . for 26 years of small business ownership the software has been usable while the costs have been excessive and the service nonexistent.  We're done with Intuit.  Using the latest desktop option on a dedicated computer that does not have internet connection . . . all we need is checking and cash management.

Granted this may not be a long term solution but it will suffice until retirement at which point I will recommend anything but Intuit products to the new reins holder.

Interested in other company reviews from QB users if/when you have experience.

I was hoping the fix I posted would work, darn.

Intuit is such a big company, they have difficulties listening to user feedback and simply direct people to their customer support team. But often the customer support team directs people to the forums to share their feedback. So it's not helpful.

I really like QuickBooks but I wish they would listen to user feedback.

As I posted previously, it will prevent the automatic updates, but won't prevent the dreaded QB Utility prompt that Windows non-admin users will receive. 

I guess it's in the nature of companies that have market dominance - arrogance.  I've noticed this with other large, market-dominant companies such as Microsoft and Apple.   Most of the time, their support is largely robot-driven with little to no human interaction, especially at the first level of support.  They create significant obstacles to reach the next level because it costs them more, or they turn 'real' tech support into a profit center by charging exorbitant 'VIP' fees.  The humans in tech support (especially 1st level) tightly follow scripts (you can see their template driven responses in this topic) and that approach will work quickly for basic issues, but fail miserably when the tech actually has to think and listen closely (or in this topic, read carefully).

I called QuickBooks Priority Circle tech support today, Jan 18, 2024 regarding not being able to disable Automatic Updates (radio buttons being grayed out). I updated last night from QB Enterprise 2022 to QB Enterprise 2023 R9_56, the latest rev. We usually run about 6 to 9 months behind current patches and new versions like QB 2024 so we can monitor the experience of others before deploying bug ridden updates and versions. We have learned the hard way over 20+ years not to install V1 of ANY software without testing first! The tech admitted Intuit purposefully disabled the feature "because too many users were experiencing data corruption and other issues because they never updated their software". Sounds like it may have been a choice by Intuit to help decrease CS calls. I was encouraged to send my feedback to the development team, which I did. If the software says "Enterprise" in the name, we expect it to behave like Enterprise software. We don't allow users to make ANY changes to their desktop systems without an Admin providing an Admin username and password.

So it appears we're stuck with the bush workarounds discussed here. If we come up with an elegant solution we'll post it here. Sorry for the bad news.

QuickBooks Desktop relies heavily on Windows to run properly. Microsoft started forcing update patches since Win 10. Intuit is just following the trend to minimize problems.

Bad comparison

Microsoft updates are completely controllable and customizable.  Don't want updates during business hours?  Just set that in a GPO.  2 minutes work.  

The issue is not that we do not want QB updates.  The issue is one random employee says yes to update, opens the company file and upgrades it, and thereby locks out everyone else in the company until each and every employee updates.  And we also have a remote desktop server, etc.  It's a 2 hour task to get everyone back into QB after ONE SINGLE PERSON updates the app on their computer.  

What the actual f, Intuit?  What is wrong with your software architects?  Your updates don't actually add features or fix any problems so why do you even have updates?

The end result of Intuit's incredibly stupid programming blunder is our QB Enterprise 24 becomes unusable at random in the middle of the day.  Then we IT people get screamed at. 

-Intuit creates business emergencies. 

-Intuit denies us the ability to stop these business emergencies when their forced updates take down the accounting system.  

I recently had a client switch from QB to Sage.  Instead of QB emergencies every 2 weeks, I have had to jump in with Sage exactly zero times in the last year or so.  So QB was constantly falling over and dying, and Sage is like being the Maytag repairman.  Everyone consider that. 

Why did this company switch to Sage?  Not because of this update issue.  It's because their company file become corrupt, Intuit "repaired" it over and over.  Intuit kept sending back a broken company file and saying it was repaired. 

We learned that Intuit is not actually capable of knowing if their repair did anything.  The person who does the repair has no clue if their work fixed anything.  Think about what I just said.  Not being able to repair a file may be forgivable.  Not being able to tell if you fixed it or not before you give it back to the customer...this is so far beyond incompetent it is scary and stunning.  A stunning display of incompetence.  25 years working in IT and I have never witnessed a vendor being incapable of knowing if they fixed a problem (and also never actually fixing it).  

As soon as I hit save on this post, I'm emailing the link to the thread to the company owner who is having the update outages. 

By throwing Intuit under the bus in the fashion they deserve, Intuit can potentially get fired instead of me.