How to Stop iTunes from Opening Automatically on Windows 10

iTunes Logo on a Blue Background

Have you ever wanted to charge your iPhone or iPad using a cable hooked to your Windows 10 PC, but every time you plug it in, iTunes starts up? It can get annoying pretty quickly. Here’s how to fix it.

The culprit is a small Apple program that runs in the background called “iTunes Helper.” This program gets installed when you install iTunes, and it detects when an Apple device is plugged into a USB port and opens iTunes automatically. To prevent this from happening, we need to disable iTunes Helper. Here’s how.

First, right-click the Windows 10 taskbar at the bottom of the screen, and select “Task Manager” from the menu that pops up.

Right-click on the taskbar and select "Task Manager."

In Task Manager, click “More Details” at the bottom of the window.

In Task Manager, click "More details."

After the Task Manager window expands, click the “Startup” tab.

In Task Manager, click the "Startup" tab.

In the “Startup” tab, locate the entry called “iTunes Helper,” and click it once to select it. Then click the “Disable” button in the lower-right corner of the window.

(You will also see another entry in the list called “iTunes Mobile Device Helper,” but leave it alone. Disabling “iTunes Mobile Device Helper” will prevent iTunes from being able to sync with your Apple mobile devices.)

In Task Manager Startup tab, disable "iTunes Helper."

After that, close Task Manager and either sign out and sign back in, or restart your PC. The next time your plug in your iPhone, iTunes will not appear.

Want to skip the restart or log out? You can also just end the iTunes Helper process. Click over to the “Processes” tab, locate “iTunesHelper” in the list, right-click it, and select “End Task.”

End iTunes Helper task in Task Manager.

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How to Disable Store App Update Notifications on Windows 10

By default, Windows 10 displays notification pop-ups when the Store automatically installs app updates. You’ll see a notification saying an app “Just got updated, check it out.” If you’d rather not see those, here’s how to turn them off.

For example, we saw this notification when Windows 10 automatically updated “Gaming Services,” a background service. There’s no way to “check out” a background service—unless you want to fire up a game from Xbox Game Pass for PC—so we decided to just disable these.

A Store notification on Windows 10 saying an app "Just got updated, check it out."

The Store’s notification options are located in the “Settings” app. To launch it, open the “Start” menu and click the “Settings” icon at the left side of the screen, or press Windows+i.

Clicking the "System" icon in Windows 10 Settings.

In the “Settings” window, head to System > Notifications & Actions. Scroll down to the “Get Notifications From These Senders” section.

Look for the “Microsoft Store” option in the list. If the Store sent you a recent notification, you will see it at the top of the list is sorted by “Most Recent.” Click the “On” switch to turn it to “Off.” The Store won’t show you update notifications anymore.

Disabling Microsoft Store notifications in the Settings app.

That’s it. We still recommend you leave the Store’s automatic updates enabled for security reasons, as Microsoft now sometimes issues security updates through the store.

However, you don’t need the Store notifying you when it installs these updates.

(Also, if you do disable automatic updates, you won’t see notifications when updates are available. We’ve only seen the Store send notifications after installing an update—not when a notification is available—so these notifications won’t help you manually install updates.)

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