Any way to do this without 3rd party tools? And were these forced updates introduced with the Creators Update so I can make sure not to use this POS update??
You will have to use this build at one time, the old builds will be left unsupported after 2 years (except LTSB/LTSC). I also don't get which updates you want to avoid.
I think that sooner or later you'll have to give in and accept Build 15063, a.k.a. the Creators Update, and all the warts that come along with it. With the introduction of Windows 10, Microsoft has abandoned the fixed release model and adopted the rolling release model. Remember when Windows 10 was originally released the statement was made that "Windows 10 will be the last version of Windows"? Think about it, who is still running the original release (Build 10240) or the November 2015 update (Build 10586)? Probably no one. In another year or so, we'll be talking about Build 15063 in the same way.
And this is exactly why people use windows enterprise LTSB. I remember when I spent the entire day removing trash from win10 Home only to have it all return automatically. Yeah I was angry. Using regular Windows means you are locked into the "windows as a service" path. Period.
Best thing you can do is to set all your internet connections as "metered connection". This way windows won't download anything without you push an update button somewhere first. It just send some alert once a day.
Yes, but it has some problems. For example, you can't install offline updates(it says you should enable service first) or you can't download apps from Windows Store.
Are you blind? I did that in the original post and you can clearly see that it says it'll still download updates.
Far as I know the text doesn't change but as the above poster also mentioned it would possibly break other functions to set the service to fully disabled and if kept at manual Windows could just re-enable it whenever something triggers a update check.
I believe this thingy should help regardless of edition https://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/windows-10-update-disabler.72234/#post-1297023