In order to pause Microsoft Office 365 Entra or Azure AD Connect, you will need to Powershell as simply disabling services will not work
Open an elevated Windows PowerShell command and run the following command to set up the Exchange Online module.
Install-Module MSOnline
Connect to Azure AD with an Office 365 admin account
Connect-MsolService
Disable Entra Connect
Set-MsolDirSyncEnabled -EnableDirSync $false
If you want to turn synchronization back on run this command
Set-MsolDirSyncEnabled -EnableDirSync $true
To confirm that synchronization is off confirm that you see a cloud next to the user’s name (you may have to adjust the columns)
If you get the error Set-MsolDirSyncEnabled : You cannot turn off Active Directory synchronization you will simply have to wait for the initial synchronization to finish
