Forced restarts with Windows Update, why dammit??!

[norm]

Which idiot at Redmond thought it would be a good idea to force computers to restart after installing an update?

Yes it has a 10 minute time-out, and yes you can postpone it for up to four hours (too short). But ultimately if I don't want to restart to install some trivial update, I shouldn't be forced to.

Just now I was away from the PC running a program, and Windows went and restarted, losing all progress. It's a complete farce.

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Steve Ballmer ordered it be done in a fit of misanthropic lunacy so as to confound people doing lengthy scientific computations all around the globe.

 

[Muffin`]

Is it your PC or are you on a Domain?

 

[BillytheImpaler]

There's a registry hack to fix it if you're interested:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/wind...update-from-forcibly-rebooting-your-computer/

 

[Muffin`]

oh vista, really should buy it

 

[ns400r]

So alter the policy that controls it.

Start>Run>gpedit.msc

Computer Configuration>Administrative Templates>Windows Components>Windows Update>No auto-restart for scheduled Automatic Updates installations

Specifies that to complete a scheduled installation, Automatic Updates will wait for the computer to be restarted by any user who is logged on, instead of causing the computer to restart automatically.

If the status is set to Enabled, Automatic Updates will not restart a computer automatically during a scheduled installation if a user is logged in to the computer. Instead, Automatic Updates will notify the user to restart the computer.

Be aware that the computer needs to be restarted for the updates to take effect.

If the status is set to Disabled or Not Configured, Automatic Updates will notify the user that the computer will automatically restart in 5 minutes to complete the installation.

Note: This policy applies only when Automatic Updates is configured to perform scheduled installations of updates. If the "Configure Automatic Updates" policy is disabled, this policy has no effect.

Set to Enabled will stop the auto reoot.

 

[Richdog]

Answer: disable auto-updates and update manually on a weekly basis.

 

[ethan]

Noticed this yesterday (for the first time. If this is the thing you are talking about). Sitting there quite comfortably doing what it was I was doing and all of a sudden I got the message windows is shutting down to install/activate updates.....without any choice? Shall apply the above suggestions lol

 

[mattyrigby00]

i didnt get that in XP on the last update, but i have it set to notify me when theres updates, but not download or install.

 

[bledd]

there's a setting in gpedit.msc to disable the restart, but yes, it is very gay!

 

[PowerDemon]

all of a sudden I got the message windows is shutting down to install/activate updates

Wasnt there a virus that used to do that?

 

[chimaera]

Wasn't Windows XP supposed to be the first version of windows that doesn't need to be restarted for apps and updates?

Didn't last very long...

 

[modo77]

Yes and then Vista. And now if you look at the list of possible features for Windows 7, its on there They'll get there in the end..