Microsoft silently installing PC Health Check app on Windows 10 PCs

Microsoft Windows 11 is now rolling out and it is upgrading all eligible computers to the latest version of the company’s Windows operating system. In order to perform the upgrade, Microsoft had previously introduced a revamped version of its PC Health Check app. Now, it is being reported that Microsoft is silently installing the app on Windows 10 computers and that it gets automatically reinstalled even after a user deletes it from the PC. Some users have been complaining that they are unable to uninstall the app at all.

According to a report by BleepingComputer, the PC Health Check app, a diagnostics tool from Microsoft, which offers the ability to quickly diagnose and troubleshoot issues with a PC, as well as verify if the hardware is compatible with Windows 11, is being ‘force installed’ on Windows 10 devices as part of the October KB5005463 update that started rolling out last Friday.

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While the update brought the PC Health Check app which was previously an optional download for users who wanted to check if they could update to Windows 11, users have reported that the app reinstalls itself when their computer checked for updates again, according to the report. This essentially means these users have to keep uninstalling the PC Health Check app from their computers.

The report also states that users are unable to remove the update via the “update history” section, as the system reportedly states that the KB5005463 update is “not installed”. However, there is good news, as there appears to be a way to block the app from being installed again. This method is not guaranteed to work for all users, as the report says some computers are ignoring the method and downloading the app anyway.

Users will have to open their Registry Editor, then click on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, then click on SOFTWARE, followed by Microsoft, followed by PCHealthCheck. Then create a new entry called “installed” (without quotes) and set the value to 1, which will prevent the installation of the PC Health Check app in the future, according to the report.