We use the host file with many entries to 127.0.0.1 to prevent many undesirable sites. The list is very long. If DNS Client service is enabled, everything is turtle slow. I always disable this service and stop it. Lately it seems to be re-enabling itself at will. Is Microsoft doing this via updates? If so, I sure wish you would stop. When an admin disables a service it is for a reason. I now find myself continuing to have to disable this service. If it isn't Microsoft, then what?

I don't think that the updates can do that. Please check if there any group policy configured that is doing it.

These are newly deployed machines. I don't have a domain or A/D that would be setting this. They are just in a workgroup. This has happened on more than one Windows 7 box that I have deployed. The users complain that they cannot view the internet without 5 minutes between pages, and then their shares are also slow. It finally dawns on me that, "hey the service I disable from the getgo, has probably mysteriously turned itself back on again." I check and sure enough it is on and back on automatic...I turn it off and disable it. The lastest user said things were fine until a few days ago. So that means the service had been off for months as I had set it. I did do some updates where I updated Spybot, Malwarebytes, Java, and such on that machine, but none of these should be re enabling a service. So I just imagined MS was doing it via Windows updates. I will be glad to check a group policy if you can tell me what to check for. I however, have not set a policy on that computer of any kind and it is still working fine this morning. It is the third or fourth machine that has had this same issue.