Chrome: Disabling Auto Update using RegEdit

The latest series of blog postings have been focused on automating Chrome with PowerShell and Selenium. When working with Selenium the underling libraries (DLLs) must match the version of Chrome installed. Corporate environments do not always update Chrome to the latest version. The virtual machines used to run automation tasks often restrict auto updating software applications including Chrome. As part of automating Chrome using PowerShell and Selenium it is sometimes necessary to prevent Chrome from automatically updating so that an earlier version of Chromes can be automated.

On Windows the steps to disable Chrome auto update are as follows:

In the search box on the taskbar enter RegEdit which should allow the Registry Editor app (regedit) to be invoke:

From the RegEdit application, navigate to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Update\

The path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies will exist but the Google and Update keys may not exist and will have to be created manually (see below):

To create the missing Google key:

Right click on the Polices folder to display the context menu and from this menu select New | Key:

When the Key menu item is invoked a new key named "New Key #1" will be created:

Rename "New Key #1" to Google:

Follow the same steps to add the Update key under the Google key. With the Update key selected:

Right click on values panel to the right and select New | DWORD (32-bit) Value:

When the DWORD (32-bit) Value menu item is invoked a new key named "New Value #1" will be created:

Rename "New Value #1" to AutoUpdateCheckPeriodMinutes and leave the value set to 0:

This disable Chrome auto updating on Windows