“This forced update stuff is just horrible”
You can block the updates with a firewall. Then install them months later after the bugs have been ironed out. The updates used to break stuff on my devices at the most inconvenient times. Not anymore.
You can also go into the update settings and tell it to not DL the updates, but just tell you they are available, or tell it to DL the updates but not install them. That's what I did. But, it didn't help. I triggered the update so I could monitor it. When it went to restart, it never came back up.