Disable restart after update windows xp

If Windows is trying to install critical updates on a schedule or at the next available opportunity that require a reboot, it will popup the restart dialog. But it will also show a timer which will automatically reboot your computer to finish the update, whether you want it to or not. This can lead to lost work or you could lose large downloads etc. There are ways to stop this happening though, here are 5 solutions for you to look at which will stop Windows rebooting automatically after an update.

The most useful way to turn off the scheduled update countdown and reboot is to edit or add a key into the system registry. This will tell Windows Update not to reboot automatically even if the update requires it. To make things easier, here is the. Download Disable Windows Update Restart. On the Windows key, right click and create a new key called WindowsUpdate, and then right click on WindowsUpdate and create a new key called AU.

Then double click on it and enter a value of 1. Close Regedit. This edit does need a reboot to complete the process though. I've had this problem several times when I've left a job running overnight, or just when I was looking at a bunch of documents, websites etc. Came back to an empty desktop, thanks Microsoft. What really annoys me though is that for years, one of the first things I do in Windows when installing is to set windows update to download updates but let me choose when to install, and yet regularly they seem to include an update which changes your settings back to install and reboot automatically!

Beware if you install Office and download the first update for that. That one seems to reset your automatic updates settings. There have certainly been others too. It's getting to the point that I think I'm going to have to manually check Windows Update settings after every windows update I manually approve!

This "feature", along with my other favourite Windows feature where pop-ups steal focus when you are typing away, and you dismiss them with a keystroke without even seeing what it is you agreed to or cancelled, drives me crazy!

I so hate this "feature" that I first saw on Windows 7. I saw it when I came into work in the morning and clicked "postpone" because I had a lot of things open I needed to work on.

While I was eating my lunch, I watched Windows just begin to close everything!! Most of it I hit cancel and it just forced it closed, destroying all my unsaved work! There was no way to even stop the shutdown process once it started. If it keeps nagging me, I will eventually run my system updates and reboot usually at the end of the week, like I do on my Mac , but forcing a reboot and killing all of a users data! This definitely shouldn't be enabled by default.

Now I'm behind a few hours at work. Thanks for the post. I've disabled it, but noticed people mentioned in the comments this didn't work. Let's give this a shot and see what happens. Totally agree I'm not sure about the guys at Microsoft but a server "automatic" restarting without supervision by an administrator is one of the most senseless and dangerous things in a professional, productive server environment.

Really, on a mission critical system you don't want the system to decide for itself to perform a reboot. What if the system in question is a heart-monitor in an hospital IC station? The default setting for any serious sysadm should be: no unsupervised reboots. A serious sysadm plans maintenance windows every month, week, or for my part day when the system is safely on the ground and a reboot is allowed.

Just disable automatic updates. Why should microsoft decide when you apply updates in the first place. Disable Auto Update? Most people will quickly forget that they did so and soon open themselves to all the nastiness the electronic frontier has to offer.

Do not disable AU. The jerks of the world make new malware and find new exploits every day, the updates try to protect you from this. This does not specify which versions of Windows this applies to. It did not work for me on Windows 7. Will this disable the prompts entirely or only to the value I set in the second setting? If I want to disable them entirely what should the settings be? Ron The fact that the post has a date of July should have been a pretty good indicator for you that it wasn't written with Windows 7 in mind.

So am I right in understanding that there is no way to manage this popup permanently in XP? If that's the case, then I agree with Dave that it would be useful to have stated that in the article.

Why should I have to trawl through the comments to work that out, Ryan? I see there are various options for handling it at the time it happens, but I would like to sort out my parent's PC such that it pops up only every 4 hrs, and will never auto reboot without the user's OK.

Isn't that possible? It's not clear from the comments. And it that's not possible then I'm dumbfounded. It's so obvious and following all the complaints didn't they introduce and XP update for this? Another thing I do is, if it's not giving a countdown to auto restart, then I just leave the dialog at the side of the screen without clicking Now or Later. Very helpful with stopping the auto restart after an update. I'm currently trying to restore files that were lost and didn't feel like baby-sitting my computer for hours to keep Windows from restarting.

I can live with the pop up as long as it doesn't do anything I don't want it to do. Will restart once the files are restored and the pop up will be history until next time, I guess. And I did not have to reboot for the change to take affect. Running Windows XP. The restart window still pops up the auto count-down is no longer included. So I'm safe to finish what I've started before I'm ready to reboot.

I was not directing the question at anyone in particualr. I am running Windows XP 64 bit Version sp2. THe easiest way to shut down the automatic updates from restarting vista after it has downloaded them is to go to Control Panel then to click on windows updates then on the left side which should be blue click on change settings. When you are here there are many things you can do but I would go to important updates and choose the option you want for me it was Download updates but let me choose whether to install them.

This will allow updates to be downloaded and you can restart your computer when you wish. You also have to set 'Run as Administrator' even when you are logged in as an user with administrator privileges.

Your email address will not be published. Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. A notification would be fine, but an annoying popup that appears every 10 minutes and gives you 5 or 15 minutes to decline or have your Windows system reboot automatically just causes so much hassle for many users. Microsoft forces to update and restart, because they can then do their online business of msn, live search and so on. If you have noticed, everytime it updates, all the settings changes back to microsoft products, like home page changes to msn, my google search toolbar changes to live?

And my hp pavillion laptop does not support XP politely for which Microsoft had contributed to force using Vista. Is this a way of doing business? Though their software are widely useful, they should at least have some respect of customer, not undestimating them. Thats why anti-microsoft slogans are spreading from such frustrations.