Windows Auto restart feature is completely fucked.
If you’ve ever come to work only to find that your computer is sitting at the login screen and your unsaved, open spreadsheets and text files are completely gone forever, it’s because Windows automatically restarts your machine when it updates. You may have seen this in the form of a little countdown box that pops up every thirty seconds and says:
Windows has finished updating. Windows will restart and lose all of your unsaved shit if you do not click the Don't Restart button in the next twenty seconds.
I think this feature outranks the Microsoft Breifcase in terms of function and annoyance, so here’s how to turn it off:
Go click Start, then go to Run
Type gpedit.msc
Click on Computer Configuration in the Local Computer Policy Tree on the left.
Click on…
Administrative Templates
Windows Components
Windows Update
and finally: Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations
It should say Not Configured. Give it a bunch of minutes. 604 is a good amount of minutes. You can’t disable it because then it’ll just assume you meant to type 10 minutes when you actually meant NEVER EVER DO THIS.
Then hit OK and immediately close the Group Policy box you opened. Unless you don’t know what you’re doing mucking about in the Windows config files. Then you should just fuck with everything.
Btw, I got this tip from Daniel Turini at Code Project, which is the awesomest source on the web for C++ code.
7 responses so far ↓
1 James // Oct 6, 2006 at 12:08 pm
The description says if the feature is not configured or disabled, the default is 10 minutes. So is it still rebooting itself, or did you do something else to it?
2 hammer // Oct 6, 2006 at 12:14 pm
Oops. I haven’t checked it yet because it hasn’t had to reboot. I think you’re right though. I’ll change it. Thanks
3 SOBIA // Apr 10, 2007 at 6:53 am
I CANNOT SET MY COMPUTER SETTINGS B’COZ MY COMPUTER RESTARTS AFTER 1-2 MINUTES.WHAT SHOULD I DO?
4 Seth // Jun 5, 2007 at 6:09 am
Why can’t you just turn off where it says: “No auto restart for scheduled Automatic Updates installations”?
5 hammer // Jun 13, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Because I didn’t know you could do that dude. Thanks for the tip. Where does it say that?
6 Jeannie // Apr 1, 2008 at 11:10 am
1. Click Start -> Run
2. Enter “gpedit.msc”
3. Go to Local Computer Policy -> Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Update
4. Double-click on “Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations” “No auto-restart for scheduled Automatic Update installation”
5. Disable it! Enable it!
6. Reboot the computer
Disable_restart_with_scheduled_installations.
You can also change the default setting of “Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations” to remind you once a day, or so if you can still stand these pop-ups.
If you want to change this for your whole network, you can use Group Policy. For security reasons, I recommend that all computers should be turned off after work or office hours.
7 Jeannie // Apr 1, 2008 at 11:11 am
1. Click Start -> Run
2. Enter “gpedit.msc”
3. Go to Local Computer Policy -> Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Update
4. Double-click on “Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations” “No auto-restart for scheduled Automatic Update installation”
5. Disable it! Enable it!
6. Reboot the computer
Disable_restart_with_scheduled_installations,
You can also change the default setting of “Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations” to remind you once a day, or so if you can still stand these pop-ups. If you want to change this for your whole network, you can use Group Policy. For security reasons, I recommend that all computers should be turned off after work or office hours.
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