The pause has been lifted and you can now once again update Minecraft for Windows. The current release as of this notice is 1.20.72. The official announcement is here.

Once again, thank you for your patience!

Updating Minecraft for Windows to release 1.20.70 or later is currently paused due to the possibility of world loss. Some players who updated early, before the pause began, lost all their worlds (we're tracking that issue in MCPE-174716); the pause is meant to prevent others from losing theirs. We are keeping this report open so that people who are unable to update can find it instead of creating new bug reports, but the problem is already well understood. No additional information is needed, so please do not add further comments to this report.

Mojang and the Xbox team are working diligently to resolve the problem. Unfortunately, this has turned out to be taking longer than was hoped. While they work, any status updates will be announced on X/Twitter and the #game-announcements channel on the Minecraft Discord.

While the pause is in effect, some gameplay may be limited. If you have not updated yet, you can continue to play your own worlds and can play over network or LAN with other players who haven't updated yet, but you will not be able to play with other players who have updated. If you try, you'll receive an error message that says your client is outdated. Also, you may not be able to join certain Realms worlds, depending on whether they have been upgraded past 1.20.62. These limitations will disappear when you eventually are able to update. Your worlds should not be damaged or lost while you're waiting.

Do not uninstall/reinstall Minecraft during the pause expecting to get the updated release. This applies whether or not you were able to update. Uninstalling will delete your worlds, and while the pause is in effect reinstalling will simply reinstall 1.20.62. (Note: There is a use case where reinstalling could make sense: If you updated before the pause and you want to play with someone who didn't, and you don't care about playing with other people who updated, you could reinstall to downgrade to 1.20.62 so you could play together. However, be aware that any worlds you opened while on 1.20.70 or later will become unopenable until the pause is lifted and you update again.)

There is no recommended workaround to get the update before the pause is lifted. You may have seen suggestions of ways to update in spite of the pause using third-party software. Be aware that Mojang advises you to avoid this for safety's sake. Mojang doesn't test and can't control what such software might do. It could damage your system by installing malware, spyware, or even just buggy software. If you decide to try such methods anyway, you do so at your own risk.