Prevent Windows from rebooting after an automatic update

Posted on June 28th, 2006 in Unfiled by stickyc || 1 Comment

The Code Project - Free Source Code and Tutorials

I found this after a lot of Googling, so I’d like to share the solution. Yep, this may not be new or even advanced but it surely helped me… Anyone who is running Windows XP SP2 know what I’m talking about. That stupid, annoying, most ill-designed dialog box ever invented in the history of the computer science that asks “Updating your computer is almost complete. You must restart your computer for the updates to take effect. Do you want to restart your computer now?” And there are only two options: Restart Now/Restart Later. “Restart Later” means that this stupid thing will ask you again in 10 minutes. Yes, if you’re willing to work for the next 4 hours until lunch before rebooting, this means you’ll need to answer this question 24 times. Did I mention that the dialog steals the focus?

Now, to get rid of it: Start / Run / gpedit.msc / Local Computer Policy / Computer Configuration / Administrative Templates / Windows Components / Windows Update / Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations

You can configure how often it will nag you (I re-configured it for 720 minutes, which means I’ll be asked twice on a work day), or completely disable it.

Oh, I almost forgot: this setting is only loaded when Windows starts, so a reboot is needed. If that stupid dialog is on your screen now, just stop the “Automatic Updates” service (but keep it as Automatic, so it gets reloaded on the next start) and you won’t see it again. From Daniel Turini at The Code Project - a great tip on how to prevent Windows from prompting you for a reboot (or rebooting on it’s own) after installing updates. As someone who runs XP on his MAME cabinet, this is a Godsend. Nothing’s worse than getting punted from a marathon game of Tempest by a “New updates have been installed, reboot now?” dialog (which defaults to Yes.

For XP Home users, who don’t have gpedit.msc, you need to do a little song and dance in the registry. WARNING - Editing your registry is dangerous and can cause irreperable damage or even death to your Windows. If you dont know what you’re doing, find someone else who does to do it!

  1. Turn off automatic updates from the Automatic Update applet in the control panel
  2. Using the Task Manager, kill the wuauclt.exe update process (if you did not do step 1, Windows will re-launch it immediately)
  3. Add the following registry key: HKLM\SOFTWARE \Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AutoUpdate\NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers as a DWORD and set the value to 1
  4. Go back into the Automatic Updates and turn Automatic Updates back on.