The latest Windows update seems to enable Kindle to do forced updates.
How to use a Virtual Machine snapshot to overcome this
1. I noticed that after the recent Win10 updates below, suddenly Win was allowing Kindle (1.16) to just update by itself, against my will.
a) This happened even if in Kindle I turned OFF automatic UPDATES
b) Even changing the security permissions on the folder didn't help
c) Deleting the Kindle prefetch files in C:\windows\prefetch seemed to help temporarily, but maybe it's not a permanent fix or maybe I just missed doing it once
Cumulative update for Win 10 version 20H2 KB5013942
(and perhaps Net Framework update KB5013624)
This is bloody rude, probably on Microsoft's part too.
2. The solution I've come up with is a bit of an effort to set up, but can probably help you in other ways too. In brief:
a) Install VirtualBox 6 (Free!)
b) Take a snapshot as explained
here
c) Work from the snapshot and if there's a problem, revert to the base version
3. A virtual machine can be useful in all sorts of ways
4. FWIW I've also noticed that if you make your VM hard drive a certain size, it will be unable to do Windows updates because it doesn't have enough space!