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Posted by s0rry on June 22nd, 2006

I only have a minute but i just wanted to ask how you stopped... I can't get him to stop and it's really killing me on the inside because I know he's ruining his life with everything.
Thanks...

Posted by imaginary on June 23rd, 2006

I find your blogs very informative, in a jargon-illiterate sort of way. It gives me hope that I may one day understand technology.
<('o')>

Posted by lucylou on June 26th, 2006

thank you, thank you, thank you!!!! this has been happening to me at work...then, when i go to lunch it will restart. soooo annoying!

many thanks! =)
ps. i'm lindsay. nice to meet you!

Posted by anonymous on July 14th, 2006

just a small update to this, the local policy path is as follows on SP2 machines.

LOCAL COMPUTER POLICY -> COMPUTER CONFIGURATION -> ADMINISTRATIVE TEMPLATES -> WINDOWS COMPONENTS -> WINDOWS UPDATE

Also by clicking yes to the save after closing it you are saving a default MSC file when really you should NOT be doing this and really making and creating your own.

Posted by anonymous on July 17th, 2006

this does not work on windows 2000??

Posted by frost on July 17th, 2006

Screw windows 2000, update your OS.

--FrosT

Posted by anonymous on August 13th, 2006

Thank you SO much. I always leave AIM open with an away message overnight so that people can still send me messages while I'm asleep... well Windows Update just cloeses the program and I never get the messages. BUT NO MORE THANKS TO YOU!!

Wow Windows really sucks sometimes... but Mac can really suck sometimes too... that's why I've got both

Posted by anonymous on August 28th, 2006

Posted by anonymous on October 05th, 2006

Cheers to the Austrian guy! -tga

Posted by anonymous on January 11th, 2007

The method using Group Policy Editor (gpedit) will only work on Windows XP Professional Edidion as gpedit is NOT included in Windows XP Home Edition.

However, one another method using Registry Editor and that should work on all XP versions is this:

1. Navigate to the registry key HKLMSOFTWARE
PoliciesMicrosoftWindowsWindowsUpdateAU.
(create the key(s) if not exist)

2. Change the value "NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers" to "1".
(create as a new dword value if not exist)

Posted by anonymous on January 11th, 2007

Ooopss (slashes were deleted)....
The registry key path in my previous commend should be:
HKLM -> SOFTWARE ->
Policies -> Microsoft -> Windows -> WindowsUpdate -> AU.

Posted by anonymous on April 13th, 2007

ooh! suck sexy answers!

Posted by anonymous on April 15th, 2007

Have been trying for ages to stop automatic reboot on windows 2000 and the Austrian guy has solved the problem that I could not find anywhere else - many thanks

Posted by david on April 23rd, 2007

Becouse of automatic updates my recovery process flopped, I really hate you Micro$oft.

Posted by anonymous on May 09th, 2007

This is fantastic for anyone who leaves their computer running unattended for CAD rendering or any other processor intensive tasks. It's so frustrating to see the 12 hour job you left going the night before has been wasted. Thanks!

Posted by anonymous on May 24th, 2007

Same go's for an backupmachine that autoreboots and stops the bachup routine, many thanks

Posted by anonymous on May 26th, 2007

hmmm. The regedit operation above didn't work. I went to HKLM -> SOFTWARE ->
Policies -> Microsoft -> Windows but Windowsupdate wasn't there. Damn

Posted by anonymous on June 15th, 2007

Didn't work for me for the same reason.

Posted by anonymous on July 03rd, 2007

Thank god for this, this has been annoying me for ever, thank you thank you.

Posted by anonymous on July 11th, 2007

Thanks for the useful tip!

Posted by anonymous on September 21st, 2007

Many thanks. Windows is incredibly annoying in so many ways and this helps to make it slightly less so.

Posted by anonymous on October 11th, 2007

Just last night it did it too me. It somehow screwed my outlook. Thankyou for this information.May the Computer angel of good fortune smile on you, if you ever have to fight with technology.

Posted by anonymous on October 11th, 2007

Why wouldn't you simply do the following:
Start
control panel
Security Center
Automatic Updates
click "Notify me but don't automatically download or install item"
Apply
OK

That way, you are completely in charge of when updates are installed and its restarts.

I despise microsoft too, but this seems much simpler

Posted by anonymous on October 17th, 2007

Local Computer Policy
Computer Configuration
Administrative Templates
Windows Components
Windows Update

thats the path I had to take, to get to the No restarts. Very minor change can change for maybe everyone.

Posted by anonymous on November 19th, 2007

hi,

how to remove directory temp in windows after restart.
i mean like cron linux

so, directory temp will be always empty

thanks

Posted by anonymous on November 28th, 2007

After doing the Group Policy update open a cmd prompt and type:

gpupdate /Force

This will reload the Group Policy on the machine and should prevent you from needing to reboot the system after doing this process.

Thanks.

Posted by anonymous on December 13th, 2007

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU]
"NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers"=dword:00000001

Posted by anonymous on March 12th, 2008

thanx for this

Posted by anonymous on June 02nd, 2008

on October 11th, 2007
Why wouldn't you simply do the following:
Start
control panel
Security Center
Automatic Updates
click "Notify me but don't automatically download or install item"
Apply
OK

That way, you are completely in charge of when updates are installed and its restarts.

I despise microsoft too, but this seems much simpler


THANK YOU!!! This method is sooo much more simple than everyone made it out to be, I could never follow the above described registry paths for Windows (Home) XP. Hopefully the problem is solved!

Posted by anonymous on June 17th, 2008

GR8 info and totall investigation... thx for putting this on public!!

Posted by anonymous on July 09th, 2008

Thanks to everyone involved in this! - I couldn't believe that Microsoft had the audacity to assume that they knew better then the user in terms of when to forcibly reboot a machine. I work in developing heavily numerical routines, and a machine that decides to reboot at will .... say no more...!

I'm running W2K and I've no plans to 'upgrade' to XP - so an extra thanks to those of you who persevered with the W2K thread.

PS: comments such as: "Screw windows 2000, update your OS." - are really unhelpful and totally unproductive. If one has the compulsion to always clamber to use the latest M$ offering, then good luck. But some of us don't do this for good reasons - you might like to consider that before making such comments..!?

Posted by anonymous on August 14th, 2008

Thank you so much for the solution. It is heartbroken to see my program intended to run for 48hr to be interrupted due to the d**n auto restarting. Now I can sleep in peace.

Posted by anonymous on August 15th, 2008

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > WindowsUpdate > Auto Update > NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers

And modify it to give it a hex value of 1. If it doesn't exist, make a new DWORD with that name first.

Posted by anonymous on August 15th, 2008

easier way for XP :start menu press run and Type "services.msc" in the box and press Enter. Scroll down the list that appears to the item "Automatic Updates". Right-click that item and choose "Stop". All done. No more notice.

Posted by anonymous on August 20th, 2008

Thanks very much indeed for taking the time to document this - it has been driving me nuts for ages!

Posted by anonymous on August 28th, 2008

I manage a network with Windows Server Update Service and the "Notify me but don't automatically download or install item" option would never work becuase I would have users installing their own updates. I use Domain policies to auto download/install the approved updates in conjunction with the "No Auto Restart" policy to keep the PCs from rebooting on the users. I also use Group Policy to remove the restart balloon. For some reason the PC just started rebooting again and the policy has not changed. All was working and then about 3 weeks ago POOF! no more. Any suggestions.

Posted by anonymous on September 10th, 2008

Thank you, I had almost lost hours of work b/c of Microsoft. I am soooooo glad that I use OpenOffice.org, which auto recovers and that you told me this...I will spread the word!

Posted by anonymous on September 23rd, 2008

検討に値する。

Posted by anonymous on September 25th, 2008

Many thanks for this information, It is really useful, because I arrive this morning to my computer in order to continue the work from the previous day and what I find was that my two computers suffered the reboot.

Posted by anonymous on October 17th, 2008

cool, thanks
dunno why Microsoft implemented the same idea on windows 2003 server.. I mean.. a server restart every day OMG!

I didn't know you got a 5 min option to cancel... no-one uses a server on console

Posted by anonymous on October 25th, 2008

I am not techie at all - and most of this was way over my head. I say that before suggesting there might be an easier way

Turn Off Automatic Updates

To turn off automatic updates for your computer:

1. In Control Panel, double-click Automatic Updates.

2. Change the settings to one that doesn't automatically restart

If that isn't right please say so

Posted by anonymous on November 06th, 2008

I think the suggestion of switching off automatic update completely is the most newbie suggestion ever invented. The problem was keeping automatic update working, but disabling the auto restart after. Well, the solutions in this section work perfectly, so why jump in and say "Turn Off Automatic Updates". Why? If people wanted that, don't you think they'd have the intelligence to have already applied that solution to the problem? The problem was far more complicated then your solution assists, because you'd have people not updating their system, not downloading the latest malicious software updates. Nice idea, great, you deserve an award.

Posted by anonymous on November 13th, 2008

> Now that you have saved the settings a reboot is
>necessary for the policy to take effect.
LOL!

Posted by anonymous on November 15th, 2008

sweet. works on Windows FLP as well

another anoying thing i noticed, had my windows updates configured to download but notify me before install. well, on many ocasions i found automatic updates have magically switched back to automatic. frustrating. had 14 virtual machine running on my windows XP when I was not home and machine just rebooted after it installed something and all my virtual machines progress, gone forever.

have not tried this on vista. however the process should be somewhat simmilar.

Posted by anonymous on November 30th, 2008

Thanks a million, I really hate that windows forces you to reboot by default

Posted by anonymous on December 01st, 2008

anonymous
on June 02nd, 2008:

Thank you, that worked great! Incredibly annoying function.

Posted by anonymous on December 22nd, 2008

Thankyou so much, that automatic restart has been driving me nuts!

Posted by anonymous on January 14th, 2009

Thnx..! it HeLp me! i saLute to yoU.
juNmaR.

Posted by anonymous on January 15th, 2009

(Start->Run and type in "cmd", and type in "net stop wuauserv". This only works for 24 hours though.

Posted by anonymous on February 12th, 2009

Wanted to also add to this. The no autorestart only works if people are logged in. If the machine is just sitting idle with no one logged in, it will reboot anyways after updates. From what I hear this can't be fixed.

Posted by anonymous on February 17th, 2009

thank you very much

Posted by anonymous on March 11th, 2009

While it's imperative in many cases that the user can control the timing of a reboot (within reason), it is erroneous to think that the system is fully patched without needing to reboot. The main reason a reboot is required in most cases is because at least one file is in use and cannot be updated until the system is rebooted. If it is a security related update, especially one that fixes an exploitable flaw, a reboot should be performed asap.

Posted by anonymous on March 12th, 2009

Hi, Thanks so much FrosT, i have bugged up with this.. now its working fine thanks www.aeonity.com tooooo

Posted by anonymous on April 16th, 2009

DUDE! I have had similar problems since day 1 (practically) of my new laptop. But Since almost last summer, I couldnt change my update settings, it kept saying "controlled by the system admin" WHICH WAS ME! Luckily, with the help of your guide, I saw an option in there for update settings, and now i have it back to where it downloads updates, but lets me install them when I want. I have been looking or this solution forever. You are the man!

Posted by anonymous on April 16th, 2009

This guide is really appriciated, thank you!

Posted by anonymous on June 12th, 2009

It's time for a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft for this auto restart. Even after you turn it off it somehow gets turned back on eventually.

Posted by anonymous on August 09th, 2009

thanks man.

Posted by anonymous on August 13th, 2009

10X very good guide.

Posted by anonymous on August 13th, 2009

anonymous 3/12, yes, we know, thanks. the point is that most people are perfectly willing to take the risk of delaying having the patch properly applied for a few hours the sake of not disrupting a task that the computer's been intentionally left running for. learn to read

Posted by anonymous on August 14th, 2009

THANK YOU!!! I'm often downloading large files, and today I couldn't leave my PC as those reastart messages just kept popping up. After I'm done downloading, I'll restart and see how it goes. Thanks again!

Posted by anonymous on October 23rd, 2009

Dear god thank you. I am bit of a power user, but I always hate using RegEdit to do these kinds of hacks... Which is the only other way I've seen this done.

Posted by anonymous on November 11th, 2009

To the person who said "I think the suggestion of switching off automatic update completely is the most newbie suggestion ever invented. The problem was keeping automatic update working, but disabling the auto restart after.... The problem was far more complicated then your solution assists, because you'd have people not updating their system, not downloading the latest malicious software updates. Nice idea, great, you deserve an award."

Clearly you don't comprehend the simpler solution. Choosing when to restart after an update leaves a system just as vulnerable as having the choice of when to download and install update. Most updates AREN'T applied until a restart is performed. And based on the responses here, I suspect that many people would not bother to restart if they were given the ability to avoid doing so completely.

Posted by anonymous on November 12th, 2009

Thank you very much! I am not sure if automatically restarting people's machines was some sort of cruel joke but it definitely lost its charm. And thanks to the last user (who seems way too excited about the bit of info he has to offer) for reminding us that restarting once every few days is still a good idea.

Posted by anonymous on November 25th, 2009

AUTO RESTART WTF!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? What gives these MICROSUCK b-stards the right to F-UP what you have going on and just auto restart your system on a whim, and better yet not even restore any settings!!!!!!! I have been screwed by this quite a few times!!!! One time, I had a demo program that could only run 10 times, and I was on the 10th time, so I thought, well I'll just leave this running over the next couple of days to finish the test project I was working on, and then the next morning BAM! F-ing computer restarted by F-ing MICROSOFT A-HOLES!!!!!! So of course could no longer run it, plus could not re-install, so basically BENT OVER ONCE AGAIN BY MICROSUCK A$$BAGS!! I've also had multi-hour processes aborted, and even lost data once by simply taking a phone call while I was working, not looking at the screen for 15-20 mins, and then BLAM the F-ing thing is REBOOTED!!! WTF?!?!? I am one that has 8 gig memory and has 10-12 apps open at once, it takes a lot of time to restore all of that YOU F-ING F-SACKS MICROSUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If anything would turn me to the MAC, this was it, but maybe now with this fix GEE I CAN ACTUALLY CONTROL MY OWN COMPUTER AGAIN!!!! WTF YOU MICROSUCK A-HOLE F-KNOBS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So thanks to this author, now if you could come up with a mod that would allow us to RAM A 50 FOOT BUTT DONG UP THE MICROSUCK A$$ CHUTE then my life would finally be complete!!! F-ING SACK BAG F-KNOB STOOL EATING D-CKLICKING MICROSUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Whoo yeah ok I feel better now, thanks.

Posted by anonymous on December 11th, 2009

Grateful thanks to the Austrian guy, August 28th, 2006! I wanted to switch off this "helpful feature" for a long time, but couldn't find the updates section.
b.t.w. I turn off my computer EVERY day, so i don't leave it unattended for months without finishing the update. But when I'm working on something, I don't want to be annoyed every 5 minutes! The update can wait another hour before I shut down, can't it? But still I want the update notifications running.... so I definitely don't turn them off! (indeed, that's a bit of a newbie remark.... but I wouldn't insult the "newbie" that way. be nice... not everyone is a geek!)

Bottom line: thanks to all for posting this solution!!!!!

Posted by anonymous on January 13th, 2010

Many many thanks! It was useful. I had lost my work when Microsoft Windows restarted my computer when I was away just for some time.

Posted by anonymous on January 25th, 2010

Clear concise directions to fix this known problem - just what I was looking for - thanks!

Posted by anonymous on March 10th, 2010

Thanks, fixed the problem for me as well.

Automatic update actually bit me while I was using computer normally. Didn't get any advance warning either, program just started closing out of the blue. I can understand idea of automatically rebooting after updates to get them to use. But I think forcing the programs to close so fast is a total WTF... (the few programs I was quick enough to click "save changes" were terminated mid-save!) Why can't it wait even a couple of minutes for programs to finish?

Posted by anonymous on March 31st, 2010

Thank you, what a relieve ... I guess Windows is a pretty good system, but since you never take your time in finding out how to customize all this annoying behavior the OS is set-up by default, the coexistence with Windows is such a pain in the ass.

While I write this, that damn restart-after-update-alert popped up again, and I really hope it is the very last time, and that the policy needs rebooting in order to work.

Lets see.

Posted by anonymous on June 22nd, 2010

Thanks, I still have XP on my machine at work. This is very helpful. I didn't even know about gpedit.msc.

Posted by anonymous on July 31st, 2010

worked great thanx cause I download large files often that dont have pausing and starting l8r, an whoever said sumthin bout macs suk well U SUK

Posted by anonymous on August 03rd, 2010

Thank you, I couldn't find this on W7...so I did some digging and found at least the running service. The problem is, I am uploading a batch of videos onto youtube and the computer just popped up the message, it wants to restart. My choice was to delay it for 4 hours...but I cannot stay up for 4 hours so it will reboot. I found the running service of windows update and disabled it "under services inside administrative tools", but don't know if this will actually prevent it from rebooting or if the clock is going "tic - toc, tic-toc" I hate it, but at least gave it a try!

Posted by anonymous on August 13th, 2010

Thanks a lot. This was really annoying as it rebooted my PC when I didn't wanted...

Thanks again..

Posted by anonymous on August 19th, 2010

Thanks

Posted by anonymous on September 20th, 2010

thanks! very informative and perfect!

Posted by anonymous on September 30th, 2010

Any info if MS has somehow disabled this setting, because I've had the registry edit in use for years and now I've found my computer booted on two mornings inside a week.

The registry value seems to be correct.

Thanks
Lurvio

Posted by anonymous on November 17th, 2010

SP 3 DOESN'T REQUIRE THE SAVING STEP, YOU JUST CLOSE THE WINDOW.

GOOD ADVICE

THANKS!!

Posted by anonymous on December 21st, 2010

How about for Windows 7? This does not work for Windows 7. Any tips here?

Posted by anonymous on January 03rd, 2011

Thank you so much. I was just about to disable auto update. This is great but I am sure the popups will nag me to know end.

Even though this is years and tears old. You still deserve the thanks.

Michael

Posted by anonymous on March 17th, 2011

You are my hero! :-)

Posted by anonymous on March 30th, 2011

gpedit.msc only exists on the Pro version of XP.

Posted by anonymous on April 18th, 2011

Screw gravity :[

Posted by anonymous on August 02nd, 2011

Just got it to work with Win 7 Ultimate 64

Posted by anonymous on August 22nd, 2011

This will not work if nobody is logged on, for example on a server which runs its services without any user session or a computer you just leave on the log on screen ...

Posted by anonymous on October 13th, 2011

Add the following to a text file and call the file whatever you want but add the extension .REG to the end of the file. Then all you have to do is double-click the file and click OK at the prompt and the key will be added to the registry which prevents auto-logoff when someone is logged in. It will not prevent restarts if no one is logged in but this is easy to deal with. Just launch gpedit.msc and turn off auto restarts and you're done. Very simple, really (Contributed by Wulfmaer):
------------------Place info below into text file then change .txt extension to .REG------------------------------------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU]
"NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers"=dword:00000001

Posted by anonymous on January 11th, 2012

Why the hell would anyone bother to do any of this registry editing. control panel > windows security centre > click automatic updates at the bottom > check Turn off automatic updates.

antiviruses are updates freguwently you shoulldnt be worried unless your browsing potentially maliciouswebsites or using software that accesses the internet in ways that could lead to harm.

just turn on automatic updates when you have time, download all the updates, but remember to do it regularily depending on how often is appropriate