Windows Update is a great way to keep your computer up-to-date with the latest security patches and bug fixes. However, if you don’t want Windows Update to reboot your computer automatically, there are a few steps you can take. First, open the “Windows Update” app on your computer. Next, under “Advanced Options,” click on the “Choose how updates are delivered” button. In this window, you can choose whether or not updates will be downloaded and installed automatically, or if you want to choose when they will be installed. If you want Windows Update to only install updates that are critical for your computer’s safety, select the “Only install important updates” option. Finally, under “When updates are available,” select a time frame in which you would like Windows Update to check for new updates and download and install them automatically. ..
The real problem comes into play when Windows gets tired of reminding us and says that the computer is going to reboot in 5 minutes, and the only way you can prevent the inevitable is to temporarily disable Windows Update.
There’s a couple of ways that we can disable this behavior, however. You’ll still get the prompt, but it won’t force you to shut down.
This trick should work for all versions of Windows as far as we know. You can always resort to the temporary disabling measures instead.
Manual Registry Hack
Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search box or run dialog, and navigate down to the following key, creating new keys if they don’t exist.
Create a new 32-bit DWORD value named NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers and give it a value of 1 to prevent automatic reboot while users are logged on. Delete the value to put things back to the way they were.
Downloadable Registry Hack
Just download and extract the registry hack files and double-click on WUNoAutoReboot.reg to disable automatic reboots. The other script will remove the hack.
Download WUNoAutoReboot Registry Hack
Using Auto Reboot Remover Utility
If you’d rather not mess with the registry, you can use a small utility created by the guys at Intelliadmin which will make the changes for you. Just make sure you right-click and run as administrator if you are using Vista.
Download Auto Reboot Remover from Intelliadmin
This hack should work for the professional or business editions of XP, Vista, or even Windows Server. I’d be interested to hear your feedback in the comments.
