Stop Microsoft Update

Hey there,

I'm so far to the end of my rope that I returned a computer and bought a new one to start over.

I bought a small Asus with Microsoft 10 bc I'm on deadline for a book and the Mac update was a hot mess.

Only after a little more than a week, I woke up and there'd been an "update" so that all my microsoft apps were gone - trying to open them forced me to the browser, and it resaved my freaking book as "wordpad" doc which is not something my editor is going to appreciate.

I've lost two weeks to this crap and am panicking.

So I returned the damn thing thinking I'd start fresh and block whatever the issue was. I'd seen lots of "you have 11 days to X before it does that" -- only now I can't find anything.

I've go the pause on 7 days, I disabled the "windows update" in the properties but someone said it just turns itself back on when you reboot. I spend days googling and trying stuff to get the computer reset to it's initial set up and nothing worked. Reached out on twitter to Asus and Microsoft and both were like "the reset should have done it" - so, returned and rebought and don't feel guilty about it at all.

I can't go thru this again, and I'm freaking out about missing my deadline since I've now lost weeks of work time.

Can someone please help me not let this happen again - I need to keep the apps, keep microsoft 10 and be able to write without being on the internet (I go somewhere I can't get online so that I focus)

I'll appreciate any assistance I can get because I'm literally at my last nerves final nerve.

THANKS to any help you can give me to make sure this doesn't happen again and I lose more work.