Great. Right now I have one like this jumping up from time to time. Stupid thing indeed.

As a network admin, I'm happy that my users CAN'T turn it off. They would never reboot their PC's when I needed it. I think there's a GPO that allows you set the reminder frequency though.

Surely, SURELY this reboot could be scheduled at a more convenient time? Couldn't it happen late at night? Or, couldn't the dialog wait for a period of significant inactivity and then trigger the reboot?

I just refuse to believe that popping up a dialog every 10 minutes-- interrupting whatever I am doing on the computer at that time-- is a rational way to deal with a required reboot.

Unbelievably, I was going to post about this exact same annoying thing today.

Anyway the way to disable it is to stop the "Automatic Updates" service. Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Services... After the service is stopped, the nag message stops, too. Then you can reboot when you have time. The service will restart when you reboot.

Exactly five seconds after I read you message I saw this message for the first time, only it didn't give me the Restart Later, it gave me 5 minutes and then it forcibly restarted my computer.
Arrgh!!

I posted a comment about this in October ( http://sirsha.com/blog/archive/2004/10/13/832.aspx ), and someone eventually left a comment with the same answer Ole left above.

Unfortunately, I had already accidentally clicked the "n" hotkey, which is deviously mapped to the "Restart &Now" instead of "&No", like I am used to, and lost a good bit of work when Windows rebooted.

This is the worst thing MS has done to me in quite a while.

As Ole Eichhorn points out you can kill the dialog by stopping the service. I personally use the command line "sc stop wuauserv" rather than the gui, but its the same thing.

Actually, what you should do is select the option "download updates for me, but let me select when to run them" in the settings for the automatic updates.
As soon as updates are available, you will see a yellow icon in the "tray" and as long as you don't click on it, nothing will happen.
When you're ready, just click on it :) More often than not, the restart won't even be necessary.

Brian --

> They would never reboot their PC's when
> I needed it

Come on, get real! Within a corporate LAN (which I assume you are talking about) you should have other security measures in place such that an IMMEDIATE reboot of an XP box is not a necessity.

My 2 cts.

J.

I've learned to live with this dialog box, however annoying it might be. I just push it to one side of the screen so that it's practically invisible. It seems so much milder than the restart dialog box that one used to get with IE5 (I haven't installed IE ever since so I am not sure if you still get the same) - once the browser was installed, it would simply say that the computer was being restarted, and 'boom' it would do so. At least there is a choice 'restart later' in this dialog box.

Me too: http://jameskew.blogspot.com/2005/03/i-told-you-already.html

"Restart later" means "I'll restart when I feel like it", not "ask me again in 10 minutes".

http://blogs.msdn.com/tim_rains/archive/2004/11/15/257877.aspx

Here is the proper solution that disables the annoying dialog without disabling the automatic update services or anything. It's a group policy setting. Thanks to Spoom - http://www.xiven.com/weblog/2004/05/01/WeHaveWaysOfMakingYouRestartYourComputer

Start -> Run -> gpedit.msc -> Local Computer Policy -> Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Update -> Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations.

You can disable the reminder entirely, or adjust the frequency of the pop up.

Maybe, Microsoft could add a snooze option. Where we would enter the number of minutes for the next reminder. Maybe a max value of 24 hours.

Sadly, disabling that reminder as per dave's tip above results in nothing but the reminder popping up as regularly as it did before. One might expect this from the description of the setting:

"If the status is set to Disabled or Not Configured, the default interval is 10 minutes."

Therefore you can only enable the setting with a long wait time to get rid of the pop up, or disable the service as above, or just not install the updates until you're good and ready, which is likely to be when you shut down, in my experience.

> Sadly, disabling that reminder as per dave's tip above results in nothing but the reminder popping up as regularly as it did before.

Are you sure? I remember reading that the service had to be restarted for this setting to take effect.

At any rate, I'm happy with the "disable service" method for now; the service will just come back after the next reboot anyway, since it's set to start automatically.

You also need to enable Configure Automatic Updates for most of this stuff to work.

The problem with my wife's notebook is that even after restarting *multiple times*, the pop-up still comes up (a bug). BTW, I didn't find anything about it on MS Premier.

I found I didn't have the "Windows Update" folder that dave referred to in Spoom's solution. ARGHH! Anyhow, I've taken Ian's solution and a created a shortcut around it. Right click on the desktop, select New..Shortcut, complete the wizard, and you'll have a desktop restart killer (I'm still in the experimental phase, so I don't know if the underlying idea works. I will greatly appreciate it if it does).

Thanks a *LOT* Dave. It worked at 100%.

Actually in the same area in the Group Policy, enable the setting for "No automatic Restart for scheduled automatic updates" also. Corporate Lan users aside, I don't want my (net admin)computer annoying me w/ the pop-up, nor do I want some of the computers acting as low-level servers rebooting during the middle of an overnight process.

Dear friend,

Microsoft has a very annoying dialog box about rebooting when Windows update has downloaded and installed a patch that requires a reboot. Somebody there thought it would be a good idea to annoy the user every 10 minutes until they rebooted or bought a Macintosh. You can help fix this sorry state of affairs. Please send the following message to mswish@microsoft.com with the
subject line "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to reboot any more".

---------88----------
Dear Microsoft,

Your mice are great. Rodents are far less annoying than your reboot reminders. Please let me determine how long I want to wait between reminders when a patch has been installed
that requires a reboot, or else please let me know which model Macintosh I should purchase.

Thank you.

P.S. Please re-read this email every 10 minutes until you have fixed the annoying popup box.

P.S. Please re-read this email every 10 minutes until you have fixed the annoying popup box.

P.S. Please re-read this email every 10 minutes until you have fixed the annoying popup box.

P.S. Please re-read this email every 10 minutes until you have fixed the annoying popup box.

P.S. Please re-read this email every 10 minutes until you have fixed the annoying popup box.

P.S. Please re-read this email every 10 minutes until you have fixed the annoying popup box.

P.S. Please re-read this email every 10 minutes until you have fixed the annoying popup box.

P.S. Please re-read this email every 10 minutes until you have fixed the annoying popup box.

P.S. Please re-read this email every 10 minutes until you have fixed the annoying popup box.

P.S. Please re-read this email every 10 minutes until you have fixed the annoying popup box.

P.S. Please re-read this email every 10 minutes until you have fixed the annoying popup box.
---------88----------

Now pass this along to everyone you know and ask them to send the same email to mswish@microsoft.com.

Dave gave us the solution, let's use it

I tried it, it works. So, can we just do the solution and keep it at the end so that the next person who tries to find out how to stop this damn thing can find it?

Dave said:

Here is the proper solution that disables the annoying dialog without disabling the automatic update services or anything. It's a group policy setting. Thanks to Spoom - http://www.xiven.com/weblog/2004/05/01/WeHaveWaysOfMakingYouRestartYourComputer

Start -> Run -> gpedit.msc -> Local Computer Policy -> Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Update -> Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations.

You can disable the reminder entirely, or adjust the frequency of the pop up.

Posted by: dave at June 15, 2005 10:33 AM

In that xiven page, there is a comment for how to do it on XP Home, which doesn't have Group Policy Editor. You just add a couple of new registry entries via the supplied 3 .reg file lines (or you can do it manually with regedit).

...

Badge (2005-08-15 18:20:18 UTC)

For the guy with Windows XP Home...

1. Copy the text below into Notepad. Save it with a .reg extension. Open and confirm that you want to copy the data into your registry.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU]
"RebootRelaunchTimeoutEnabled"=dword:00000000
"NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers"=dword:00000001

Thanks for that guys,
I don't mind the fact that it nags me every ten mins, the thing that bugs me is I go to bed at night and wake up to a rebooted computer. The worst thing about that is I can have up to 30 programs running and when I start up again I can't remember what in the world I was doing.

Why don't you just drag the dialog box to the bottom-right corner of the screen, so that just one pixel of its top-left corner is visible ? It will not popup again or bother you. So simple...

Clever would also suggest that you should just turn your stereo up louder to drown out the bad sounds your engine is making.

Useless. Focus (/VB) shifts to that window every 10 minutes. I had my typing interrupted every 10 minutes even when I never minimized it.

Ok the solution was posted above but I've noticed a problem.

Here's the solution for thoes of you who didn't read it :
Start -> Run -> gpedit.msc -> Local Computer Policy -> Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Update -> Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations.

The problem is if you click 'disable' or 'not configured' the popup keeps comming up every 10 mins. this is mentioned in the Microsoft explaination :

"If the status is set to Disabled or Not Configured, the default interval is 10 minutes."

So you actually have to enable it and just set the interval of when it asks you to reboot really high.

Or we could just run 'cmd' and 'sc stop wuauserv'.
<_<

i have an app called TrayIt
( http://www.teamcti.com/trayit/trayit.htm )

when the "reboot now?" window pops up, i just right click the close button at the top right (which is greyed out, but trayit still does its job), and trayit puts the window into the system tray, where it sits until i click its icon

andy--

Not sure if this will work, but my IT admin just told me to:

Control Panel -> Automatic Updates -> select "Download update for me, but let me chose when to install them."

The pop-up window that I get has a countdown timer on it that ends after about 5 minutes with a restart, so I don't think the "drag the dialog box to the side" will work for me.

Like "Me" above, I went to lunch with scores of document open and returned to a restarted computer.

I had the "magic restarting wipe of doom" happen precisely once, and once was enough. Anyone, including MickeySoft, who thinks it is acceptable to trigger a remote operation that results in core system changes, followed by a forced restart, is out of their tree! Hours of work gone! And the EULA says M$ are without blame, unlike any Open Source writer, who would be pilloried across the web.

Here's the solution for thoes of you who didn't read it :
Start -> Run -> gpedit.msc -> Local Computer Policy -> Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Update -> Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations. set = 1440

And here's the real solution for people like ^^ who didn't read the thread properly:

How to disable the restart prompt completely (rather than put it off for a long time):

Start -> Run -> gpedit.msc -> Local Computer Policy -> Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Update -> No auto-restart for schedule Automatic Updates installations (enable)

Jesus Christ,

I've never seen so many idiotic rants. Yes this popup "bugs" the hell out of us, but MS make BUGGY software. Why don't you all format and install Ubuntu or FreeBSD!

Did NO ONE, apart from Aaron (the only one this message isn't targeted at), look at the options available in Start -> Run -> gpedit.msc -> Local Computer Policy -> Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Update????

I did a Google, found this thread, went to the link Dave gave us, opened up Windows Update in gpedit.msc, looked at everything there and turned off that stupid default "Install Updates and Shut Down" as well.

Thank God for Aaron, I apologise Aaron for adding a post after yours, but this was just too silly to ignore! So I've added it after this rant post of mine again.

Aaron Wrote:

How to disable the restart prompt completely (rather than put it off for a long time):

Start -> Run -> gpedit.msc -> Local Computer Policy -> Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Update -> No auto-restart for schedule Automatic Updates installations (ENABLE)

Raaabo... XP Home doesn't have a group policy editor. That solution is only for XP Pro users. Considering that XP Home is the single most popular personal computer operating system in the history of the world, your outrage seems misplaced.

I was so annoyed by this auto update issue that I made a web site. EvilUpdate.com
I have the methods for stopping the service, and for disabling restart reminders.
And a little humor as well. Enjoy,
Stephen

wow, wow, wow.
lets see here, does "auto restart" mean the same thing as "prompt" to you MORONS? they are two different settings. i'm not going to explain them because if u just think about the NAMES of the settings they explain themselves. computers are not foreign nor arbitrary, they are made by people, many of whom actually have common sense, unlike you people...oh and if u cant stand the reminder coming up every 24 hrs (1440 mins) then u need to get counseling.

Wow, I see that the whole automatic update reboot nagware thing is making some of you justifiably cranky :)

I'm going to update the original post with the great tips you guys provided!

wicked stuff!
i just blogged about this... but a kind commenter sent me your way. (cheeers to http://weblogs.asp.net/jnadal)

Having a pop up is a little annoying. But my first experience of it was setting a 3-day data processing task going and then going out of town for a week. I returned to find my computer had re-booted a few minutes after going out the door!

If the pop-up had conveyed 'restart later' wasn't the usual 'I will restart later', or there was a third option for manual restart, I wouldn't have lost an important client.

You'd think when the clever guys at MS put in an option to force a reboot of an unattended computer, such a possibility would have been clear.

"Raaabo... XP Home doesn't have a group policy editor. That solution is only for XP Pro users. Considering that XP Home is the single most popular personal computer operating system in the history of the world, your outrage seems misplaced. - slimy"

Really? You mean XP Home actually sold more than XP Pro?? Any idea on the stats of the most popular "free" XP version ;) Since those "free" users make up a majority of the comp users worldwide!

Anyway, I need an XP Home volunteer to try something out... Remember, I know nothing and I might cause you to have to format and reinstall Windows, so don't flame me if you screw up your system doing what I say...

I would do this myself to test it but I cannot find an XP Home CD anywhere... paid OR "free":

Open the registry editor.. Navigate to :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\

See if a folder called AU exists. If it doesn't, create one: New > Key > AU

Now Create the following inside this folder:

DWORD Value: NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers | Hexadecimal value 1

DWORD Value: RebootRelaunchTimeout | Hexadecimal value b4

DWORD Value: RebootRelaunchTimeoutEnabled | Hexadecimal value 1

If someone with XP Home, time to kill and no important data could verify whether this works or not, I'd be eternally grateful!

Thanks,

Raaabo

my problem was odd, I'm running XP pro under an admin acount, well the admin account, byt gpedit.msc doesn't work on this computer. I get an error about not having the right privillages. XP pro doesn't have the same registry entries that home does so I couldn't do that. the CMD command does work though, thank you for whoever thought of that and mentioned it.

THANKS!!

so glad i found this.. so annoying.

Thanks for the great tips. Not only do I get the annoying popup box that asks if I want to reboot, but just as I was about to leave my PC unattended a box popped up with a countdown timer set to something like 3 minutes; had I not clicked on 'reboot later' it would've taken the liberty to do so and trashed hours of work. Who thought this one out at Microsoft? Shame on you.

My question is, will your fixes take care of the popups even if you manually run updates on the MS website and install them? I've disabled the service and so far it seems to have done the trick. Looking at the values in the GPE, they all refer to 'scheduled' and 'automatic' updates, I wonder if they also work with manually initiated ones.

Thanks.

Bill Gates knows what you want.
Listen to Bill Gates.
He is your friend.
Trust him.
Do what he wants.
Be one with Windows.

@Raabo: Apparantly it doesn't work in Win XP Home, it displays the message every 10 minutes, and the only way to stop it is to kill the service.

The easiest and fastest way to stop the nag until YOU reboot is to select "Start", "Run", copy and paste this in: net stop wuauserv

Select "OK"

That was imbedded in the update http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000294.html near the bottom of method #1 and is what is referred to as the "command line".

Apparently I got a non-genuine copy of XP.I wasn't able to activate windows. There is a way to dis-able the windows update so I can continue to use it in my home computer? after allm I paid for the software

genius - thankyou very much :)

Thank you Thank you Thank you to all who were helpful here :D :D :D

Stupid thing kept popping up asking to restart now or restart later with a 5 minute timer set to restart automatically. Pushing the window to the side would have been like moving a time bomb from the lunch room to the basement, its still going to go off. Solution 1 worked for me, by stopping the service. Then I went to start > control panel > security settings > manage security settings for: automatic updates > Download updates for me, but let me choose when to install them.

There, fixed forever!

I cannot thank you folks enough for this information. Like at least one other poster here, I once had my computer rebooted by this appalling "feature" while I was away and couldn't prevent it from happening. You've saved me, and probably some of my loved ones, from yet another Winblows-inspired rage.

I just disabled that damn Windows Update. I can go to the stupid website if I want anything. They can't pawn shit off on me anymore now.

thank god for this!
drives me nuts!

now if they would only get rid of that icon that creates a new folder right next to the go up a level button.. i would be happy.

THANKS Jeff, I lost hours of research in open how to coding windows when I had to rush to the hospital for a family emergency and came home to find the "horror" after the horrer yet again!!!
Never to be repeated - thanks to you - YOU ROCK!!!!

Thanks man, You saved me 6 hours of video encoding!

Thanks for the tip! That dialog box is real annoyance!

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.

If you combine this evil popup with the 'Smart Move' mouse motion option it's even worse - as the popup has 'restart' as the default button. If you are unfortunate enough to click just at the moment that the reminder pops up you get restarted without even meaning it.

Again, thanks for this, straight forward clicky click!

Apparently my software is not genuine. I bought my computer new off Ebay and it came pre installed with windows XP Pro. Just a few days ago after an innocent update I now get a splash screen that I am not genuine and go here to buy a key for $199. I reformatted my whole drive and from my back up external drive restored my hard drive the way it was just before I got zapped with that "You are not genuine nonsense"

However, I now keep getting this thing to install the same update. For some reason, even though I am the administrator of my computer I can not cancel automatic updates....its all in grey and not set up to change. I followed the instructions from this site, and I still get that icon in the tray to install that dumb update which I believe is only the first step from "timing" one out, if you don't buy it in a certain time.

Big qestion is .....How do I stop these automatic updates in windows XP Pro, when I can't seem to be able to shut it off in the normal way.

Thanks

Phone up customer support and tell them your story. They may well give you a new gunuine key. I know several people who they have done that too. Worth a shot.

Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! I hate the little box, now it is gone for 24 hours, that I can deal with! -jsn

Hi, is there anyway that or any service that we can stop working in order not to receive this message! without calling MS ! I just tried and I have been told I need to pay $149 and buy the license!! I have already paid alot on Ebay for this laptop!
Thanks

Naz, we're talking about something else. Look here for a fix to your problem (Windows Genuine Advantage notifications)..

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000597.html

.. or call MS and complain that you bought it this way from some guy on eBay. Maybe if you finger the seller's eBay account, they'll throw you a free XP license?

THANK YOU! I want to have your babies!!!

Thankyou for posting.

Microsoft is annoying and destructive in their code.

There is in excuse for this BS!

Everyone play with linux, Mac, anything! The more of us know about alternatives, the quicker we can overthrow the the microcrap tyrant once and for all.

i've linked to this post. thanks for the info everyone :)

nice little tidbit. god bless Google for helping me find it. death to the MS engineer who put this in place.

Thanks folks. Hate it when I start a build and this thing reboots your machine.

You've saved my sanity. Thanks.
In middle of coding session and going mental each time that #$% thing came up.

Why did I bother buying a UPS, when I left the room for 2 minutes I came back to find the photoshop file I'd been working on for an hour disappearing.

What are microsoft thinking. I didn't even agree to install the update.

But I DO want to disable the automatic update services. Because somehow it interfers with my D-link wireless adapter settings. (I know this sounds screwy, but it was confirmed by tech support at D-link).

Can anyone tell me how to really disable automatic update and let me choose when I want to download updates? When I go into security settings,I can not cancel automatic updates ....its all in grey and not set up to change.

But unlike Naz, I have a legal version of XP (loaded with my Presario 900 that I bought retail years ago and still use).

During a recent lightening storm, I went to shutdown and unplug all my computer equipment. Upon shutting down XP, I got this message, "Do Not turn off or unplug your computer. Computer will shut down automatically after install is complete. Installing update 1 of 9..." It took almost 30 minutes for all 9 updates to install!
If my eqiupment has gotten zapped while Microsoft was installing forced updates without asking me, I would have sued them!
This is the highest form of tyranny from Microsoft yet.

Quote>
***********************************************

For the guy with "Windows XP Home Edition"...

1. Copy the text below into Notepad. Save it with a .reg extension. Open and confirm that you want to copy the data into your registry.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU]
"RebootRelaunchTimeoutEnabled"=dword:00000000
"NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers"=dword:00000001

**************************************
yay!

After i changed the re-prompt for restart time interval i did not have to reboot for the changes to take effect.

I just hit ctrl+alt+del then ended the wuauclt.exe proccess.

The process started back up, but it did not pop up the restart box again

On my copy of Windows there was no Windows Update area under Windows Components so I just made a batch file that gets executed every time I start windows. In order to do this you must first create a new text file in the folder located at start menu -> programs -> startup and add "sc stop wuauserv" (without the quotes) to the file and change the extension to .bat and save it.

Hi guys
When me shutdown xp, there is an option which automatic appear "install updates n shutdown"
How do delete this option from the shutdown menu?
Thanks

just came back to see my computer roobted and I'd lost work... was making dinner. Microsoft don't allow me to EAT??? I'm working hard Microsoft to afford another computer with a Vista (whenever that gets here)! Don't sabotage me!!

Thanks for Group Policy settings, most is not set to DISABLED. The forced reboot should be OFF by default. What a disgusting scenario. I DAMN WELL *SHOULD* BE IN CONTROL MY OWN COMPUTER! :)

I just had a variation of this happen this morning. Following the first of three auto-updates, I was given the usual dialog box with the choice to "restart now" or "restart later". However, after I elected to restart later, a more insistant dialog appeared which had a countdown timer, thermometer bar and digitial display, counting down from 5 minutes. If you were not sitting there and actively clicking the "restart later" button, the machine would reboot. I left the room for a few minutes and returned to find that the machine was rebooting, and my work was lost! All I wanted was to finish what I was doing before I packed my laptop to go. Stupid Microsoft.

Finally! This has annoyed me for so long. Maybe there really is a god ...

Thanks I was looking for this, many times it has updated my computer and restarted by itself and I have lost what I was doing!

many thanks, did both fixes, that reboot now/later thing would pop up on a timer for me... very bad for when i need to leave my computer on, thanks

If the gpedit.msc snap-in has been whacked by the Sys Admins, then what? Suggestions?

Thank you!

Thank you, stupid stupid thing!!!!

My hero! How I couldnt figured out that ;). Great tips. Goodbye Mr Super-duperNaggnerson

Thank you soooo much!!!!! This thing had annoyed me for months and I always forgot to turn automatic updates off until it was too late!

Oh thank God for these simple, but yet effective solutions =)
I've been on this computer AND on remote desktop to another computer, and BOTH have had that naggy dialog box popping up.. finally it's over! ;)

I would like to thank you every 5 minutes!

THANK YOU!!! I've been battling this dialog box repeatedly for like 2 years. Who's laughing now evil dialog box?!?

I've found another workable solution that doesn't involve changing any settings. You can let Automatic Updates stay enabled. What I do is pause the process itself (wuauclt) with a program called pausep (http://www.codeproject.com/threads/pausep.asp). Once it's paused, it stays that way until you voluntarily unpause it or reboot yourself. It's even better than the gpedit fix because it will keep the nagging at bay for longer than 24 hours. In fact, if you could go forever without rebooting, Windows Update would not bother you ever again.

I cant believe Windows did such a horrible thing to his OP, i was working with my computer when this stupid dialoge box popped up and i accidentally clicked on restart computer losing all my WORK!!!! WINDOWS IS STARTING TO SUCK!!!!!

THANKX FOR THIS HELP, I GOT THIS RIDICULOUS UPDATE BOX SINCE OVER A YEAR BUT NEVER CARED TO TRY TO TURN IT OFF UNTIL THIS HAPPENED TO ME

You can try the group policy editing but your computer will not apply it right away.So,either you can open a command line and type GPUPDATE.exe (The system policy will be refreshed) or if it doesn't work try stopping the service >>Start--Run---services.msc ==>Go to Automatic Updates and stop the service (do not disable it ,just stop).When you boot the computer,the service will restart automatically.
The system policy solution works but the issue is how long will it take to refresh and apply it .
Only a computer restart will apply the policy for sure,but remember u did not wanna restart in the first place :).GPupdate does not always work.

I can't beleive Microsoft let this one get out the door. That restart is the most illogical thought ever. How do you know what work you are going to destroy if I step out of the room and you get a reboot in.

Thank you Jeff so much for this fix!!!

Thanks so much! Haaaate dialog box, evil!

I want to thank Jeff for this. There is nothing worse than leaving your PC to download some huge file or perform some other longwinded task, only to come back and find that windows has restarted itself.

sometimes that group policy is overriden by an automatic update.

I have had the "No auto-restart for schedule Automatic Updates installations" enabled for months and have seen it get overrided an a few occasions. :(

OTOH, I've never seen the "Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations" policy get overriden. :| But that policy doesn't matter when your machine is booted while you're away from it.

I have set these settings on two PC's now, but it just doesn't seem to do anything for me. When you apply those settings while the cycle of popups is actually going, should it be killed instantly by this? Or will it only take effect the next run? I'm really interested to know, because the popup is coming back still now.

To be clear, I applied these 2 settings:

1) No auto-restart for scheduled Automatic Updates installations: Enabled
2) Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations: Disabled

I'm interested to know what other people's experiences are.

Thanks for the great tip. I had an application going that I didn't want to stop. But I had to be away from my computer for more than 10 minutes. Your advice to stop the automatic updates service worked perfectly. I'll reboot when it's more convenient for me.

i have downloaded up windows updates manulally using this

http://wud.jcarle.com/

now they are installed, how do i get xp pro to auto install them on shutdown?

i have downloaded the windows updates using a program called windows updater

to find it go to google and type in to search box

windows update downloader wud

open the jcarle web site and run the windows update downloader program.

after the udates are down, how do you make xp pro install these on shutdown?

I'm running XP and there is no pgedit.msc on my machine. Guess I'm back to NO solution.

@ R.D. Harles:
gpedit.msc as in Group Policy EDIT, not pgedit.msc
try again, and good luck to ya!

i think this works, dont know the regedit thingy

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU]
"RebootRelaunchTimeoutEnabled"=dword:00000001
"RebootRelaunchTimeout"=dword:0x0007d280

this should change the window to come once every 1 356 days

manual instructions:
open registry
navigate to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU"

there should be 3 dword things in there and 1 (default) thingy

NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers set to 1
RebootRelaunchTimeout set to 7d280 (hex)
RebootRelaunchTimeoutEnabled set to 1

there, now it should pop up that bugger once every year ;D

You can also disable B.I.T.S. to avoid unwanted background updates from "au.download.windowsupdate",

If gpupdate doesn't work, you can execuate a gpupdate /force command.
What I want to know is if there is a way to have no restart necessary when installing (non Windows Update) programs/additions.

Windows is so f_cking gay, I hate this "feature", every time I have accidently restarted my machine while I was doing something I've wanted to a_al rape Gates with a long distance nuclear warhead.

Hey, I may be completly incompetent... but when i try to run gpedit.msc it does not find the file. Any help?

Thanks

Thanks to the people who said to do the "net stop wuauserv" thing. I found this page through Google and wanted to temporarily stop the download, not the popup. Worked like a charm.

second method doesn't work for me. gpedit.msc is not found. am using xp home.

i have XP pro,and when I command "gpedit.msc" i get "snap-in failed to initailize /n Name:Group Policy Object Editor /n CLSID:{8FC0B734-....}THE QUESTION IS: HOW do i get gpedit back?

sorry,ignore that last message! anyway if u have the same problem
My Comp>Prop>Adv>Env Var>
path %SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\system32\WBEM

You should also mention that you can click Restart Later all you want, but if you walk away from your computer for long enough, it will restart your computer anyway! Oh, were you working on something? Were you working on 5 or 10 things? Sorry! That work is gone!

You can also open System Properties (Windows key plus Break key) and disable automatic updates temporarily. That doesn't get the obnoxious icon out of your tray, though.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/328010
How to configure automatic updates by using Group Policy or registry settings

note: details the regedit approach, but doesn't say if it works for XP Home (the KB article does not overall apply to XP Home)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/889738/en-us
Windows XP Service Pack 2 (Part 4): Automatic Updates

note: details the control panel interface for "download, but don't install"

Thank you for posting this. That message is sooooooo annoying.

BTW, if anyone here is in IT for a company of 50 employees or more shoot me an email.

dboundy@gha-associates.com

I can give you personal purchases for 5% over cost and FREE shipping. Corporate purchases are pretty easy too. I worked for CDW for 8 years before I came to GHA.

-Derek

Bless you
10 minutes
Bless you
10 minutes
Bless you
10 minutes
... and bless you once again.

Oh, and thanks for the great tip.

- Canolli

Solution #3

Just leave the dialogue on-screen. It's always on top, so just move it to the edge somewhere. Subsequent popups don't move it, so you can avoid them altogether and just deal with it when you like.

I suppose forgetting about it and shutting down wouldn't be a crime... ;-)

- Canolli

thz this was very helpful^^

Exelent!

Just had this happen today, killed the service, no more nag. I had too much stuff I didn't want to close, on my computer.

Hi thanks for that tip,
I manually disabled the updater, it is still trying to download stuff continuously no matter what i do.
Having a super fast 56k dial up meant it chews up what little bandwidth i have.
Is there a way to stop this download
latest file updated was KB901214 is the software scheduler

THanks in advance

You can stop the service starting again when you reboot:

Double click the service or Right click/Properties
Startup type choose Manual or Disabled. Manual means you can start it yourself Disabled means you can't start it.

Here's a little batch file I wrote...probably could be leaner (I'd love to see this as a tiny assembly-language executable)---whattamyknow, but it works; call it what you wish:

REM Disable Reboot Reminder.bat
echo off
cls
cd\
cd C:\WINDOWS\system32
sc stop wuauserv
cls

THANKS!!!! I also want to restart my computer when I feel like it.
LOL @ Mister Naggy McNaggerson. good one.

Thanks for this Jeff - you have been a great help

Hard to find, but you can download this for any XP type free on the Microsoft website

Great post, just wanted to put this in on the end for people crawling via Google:

The registry edit fix does work for users of windows XP home (those unlucky people like myself who don't have pro).
This link is great for people who know what there doing:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/328010
Or this one for a nice picture of what it should look like:
http://www.sweetpotatosoftware.com/SPSBlog/PermaLink,guid,c81a036d-9a43-4a4e-8c31-3d9d2f73da76.aspx

You will probably have to create the keys \WindowsUpdate\AU yourself. Then just create the DWORD values as shown on the second link.

Thanks,

Great post, just wanted to put this in on the end for people crawling via Google:

The registry edit fix does work for users of windows XP home (those unlucky people like myself who don't have pro).
This link is great for people who know what there doing:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/328010
Or this one for a nice picture of what it should look like:
http://www.sweetpotatosoftware.com/SPSBlog/PermaLink,guid,c81a036d-9a43-4a4e-8c31-3d9d2f73da76.aspx

You will probably have to create the keys \WindowsUpdate\AU yourself. Then just create the DWORD values as shown on the second link.

Thanks,

At work I can't modify this settings so I just move the evil devil window to the bottom-right corner and let it sit there for a week.

THANKS MAN!

You just saved my life with this "correction" to Sucky XP

My problem is continual pop-ups for updates, even though they have been downloaded and installed repetitious times. What's wrong here? And, how do I fix it?

Thanks for that - its so annoying - you've saved me a lot of time. Cheers

To prevent Automatic Updates from restarting a computer while users are logged on, the administrator can create the NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers registry value in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU. The value is a DWORD and must be either 0 (false) or 1 (true). If this value is changed while the computer is in a restart pending state, it will not take effect until the next time an update requires a restart.

I can't tell you how happy this post made me. As a developer I'm kind of on the brink of a breakdown to begin with, this little msgbox almost drove me right over the edge. Safe for now! Thanks

I'm just reinstalling Windows which of course means lots of new updates. Along with the reinstall, I'm using Files and Settings Transfer Wizard which is taking a long, long time to complete. It's fair to say that FSTW and Updates get done at the same time by a lot of people so the last thing we need is for the PC to reboot in the middle. So thank heavens for your simple advice. I dread to think what would have happened if it had rebooted in the middle.

Wow. Thanks so much. No more restarting in the middle of a DOTA Session=D

Thank god you posted a solution to this problem. This is quite possibly one of the most annoying automatic services in existance.

:[

"Be aware that the computer needs to be restarted for the updates to take effect."

so close, yet so far

I have automatic updates turned on but, suppose I don't want to install certain updates (i.e. Windows Genuine Advantage notification)?

How can I turn off the nag icon that such an update is available? Since I've already made the decision I don't want it (isn't it nice that Microsoft gives the option not to accept every update?), I should also be free of the constant reminder that it's there.

Sometimes I wonder if Microsoft ever uses their own software because there are so many things about the way you are forced work with it.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions regarding this 'feature'.

Thanks, man!
I hate this stupid dialog box. Several times I was typing on my pc and this box pops up inadvertedly, i hit a word with "n" and my pc shutsdown!
You're the man now, dog!

from a happy video editor (in the middle of rendering a *long* sequence) - cheers doods! can get to me bed now, hopefully..

just another note on above, my sys (XP/Pro, German) seems to limit the scheduled time interval to 30 mins max, sigh.. - I have (hopefully) just killed the damn thing, tomorrow, I am gonna pick every damn byte of MSs never-ending "automatic update/Genuine Verification/Just Checking & Rebooting for the sheer hell of it, actually" bullshit out of my drive and stomp on their asses till they bleed. Thankfully, Richmond itself remains outwith my geographical reach, otherwise..

Goddamn STOOPID FOOKIN IDEA that was - No wonder Linux is getting popular..

Quote :
As Ole Eichhorn points out you can kill the dialog by stopping the service. I personally use the command line "sc stop wuauserv" rather than the gui, but its the same thing.
Ian on May 19, 2005 03:55 AM

Worked perfectly thanks a lot :)

Thanks a lot. Thinking, I was the only one who hates this. I am now very pleased to see that I am not alone...

I put the annoying to the side in the past, yet few days ago after I installed several latest updates, the annoying dialog gave me 5 mins to click on the cancel bottom otherwise, the pc will reboot itself. WTF.. I hate anything to limit my freedom to deal with a machine!!

Anyone encountered this 5 mins countdown lately?

Maybe one day we will have Windows XP Professional (or Vista Professional) and Windows XP Consumer (Vista Consumer) with all these things sorted out.

Thanks God someones knew how to remove that annoying crap.

Great tip! Thanks for sharing.

The linux fanboys posting their favourite distros as a solution to this nag should go back to troubleshoot their sh make scripts and their dependencies and stfu.

Nags.

If you have XP MCE then you have a GP editor like XP Pro. XP Home users are still screwed.

That registry fix for us home users seems good. I can't believe I've been using XP for this long and haven't ever looked into fixing this annoyance. Thanks for the help.

My system not long standing at least 10 minutes. It frequently get restarted. So I couldn't do any work.
how to I solve this problem.

NOW ITS GREAT BEING WITH YOU. THANK YOU VERY MUCH AND PLEASE CONTINOUS. AND WITH MY BEST WISHES.

Operating systems SHOULD NOT require reboots to remain safe. As these machines become more powerful, people are multitasking on machines more and more. I often have many windows and projects open, and work goes on for weeks. I expect the machine to stay in that state for a long time, just as the contents of my desk are laid out to accomodate a continuous flow of work. Losing work is the worst outcome, second to the inconvenience of re-opening everything to try to pick off from where you left.

The service tip works well. Maybe someday Microsoft will develop an operating system that does not require reboots in order to remain secure.

Great!
I just lost a whole day of work because this stupid automatic restart.

I have a slightly different version of the problem, and I wonder if all of you can help me. Background: I maintain four public PCs in a scanning lab. They all have Deep Freeze on them to prevent users from messing things up. I have had to turn automatic updating off because every time the machine reboots, the updates get downloaded afresh and this slows down everything else to a ridiculous degree -- unacceptable to users. I manually go in and do the updates every week.

My question: How do I get rid of the annoying little Red Shield pop-up message that says "Your Computer might be at risk. Automatic Updates is turned off. Click this balloon to fix this problem."?? It comes up constantly. If you click on the X to kill it, it pops right back up within a few seconds. Insanely annoying!

I don't read this regularly, but if you have an answer, please email aan3q@virginia.edu

Thank you so much that helped allot.

When this automatic shutdown dialog box appears: StartMenu->RUN->SHUTDOWN -A. This disables the automatic shutdown timer, amd allows you to have control over when and if your machine restarts, the way it should be! Note-other methods in this discussion may solve the automatic shutdown from occurring in the future, but this directly fixes it when it occurs, and bugs the hell out of you.

thanx man

Hey guys!

I have found the way how to minimize the frequency of this shit!
Dunno whether anyone of you have found it before cause i didnt read the forum through.But anyway:
go RUN-gpedit.msc-Computer Configuration-Admin Templates-Windows Components-Windows Update and there is a line starting with "Re-prompt for restart....." You all should enable this feature and set the interval for a period you want. In case of mine it was set to the amount of a day in minutes so once a day it is not so embarassing now.

Cheers

Tamas

THANK YOU!!!!!

Thank god for this, windows and their dialog boxes are just a joke.
i wonder how much time we waste due to their crappy OS.

For the love of pete. This has been the thorn in my side of another thing to not have to deal with.

God Bless you.

What a fucking piece of shit window.
It's just poor coding.
It just is.

Was working last night on a complicated CG project with tons of windows open. I get on a call for 5 MINUTES, walk into the next room, come back, and ta-da, and blank desktop.
Thanks for the fix. Death to microsoft.
The Window should have a 3rd option labelled "Go To Apple.com".

thank god! Finally some peace from that thing!

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows/temporarily-disable-restart-now-dialog-from-xps-automatic-updates/

to stop it for a session only, open CMD and enter: net stop "automatic updates"

I cannot thank you enough. My morning bootup takes several minutes and consists of over a dozen apps I use throughout the day....this thing was a nightmare when it forced me to reboot after all of them had loaded!

Does Jeff Atwood's method really work. Because I wanna try it.

Does anyone know what to monitor so that I will know when a server is prompting for a reboot? Is there any registry key or polling of events? Anything?

You could always set windows updates to download updates and then prompt you to install them, that way you could install the updates when you are ready to reboot, rather than installing them while you are still working with windows.

Don't you guys think that this is in place for a reason. I would much rather do a reboot than see a vulnerability exposed and my software apps/data become corrupt. There is only one time a month that patches come out (patch Tuesdays) so you know when you will have to reboot anyway.

Ya know. I really hat IT fascist who push Group Policy dictates on users -- like insisting on 10 minute restart NAGS on an Automatic updates. Central planning and control for the lose.

I wouldnt most IT Droids near my PC let alone dictate important update installation and restart policies. Theyre more likely to format the hard disk in response to service call than solve any problem. One random MS Certification and they think they know better than the PC's owner.

There are 20,000 PCs in the organization, all inside the corporate firewalls. There are zero-day exploits that allow worms, remote control of your system, wipe data--whatever. MS released its excuse for a patch to stop that and the patch was pushed last night. 20,000 PCs are now protected, as soon as they reboot. 1000 people in the org are waaaaaaay too busy to reboot; they'd rather spend a half-hour searching the web for ways to disable the nag screen.

Your buddy in the next cube didn't want to reboot either. He has an aircard and needs to get past the firewall to get his POP3 email. He disconnected from the network and fired up the aircard. (He didn't like what the software firewall was doing on his PC so he disabled that service long ago.) Whoops--he's infected! Doesn't know it, of course. Now he needs his corp email, so off goes the aircard and back on the network.

Bummer that a lot of the folks didn't reboot. Congratulations! Now over 1000 PCs are infected, "My Documents" wiped, and all need to be reimaged. Massive downtime. The developers upstairs are screaming because they'll miss their deadlines. How could IT allow such a thing to happen????

Oops!!!

Just because you can design an engine doesn't mean you know how to drive. The above scenario happens all the time to differing degrees.; I've personally seen it 6 times.

We'll be glad to drop everything and get you working again. You're 999th on the list.

I'm a coder too. I hate it, but I've seen both sides. Stop whining and reboot the damned computer.

You guys are all whinning idiots.....and should thank your lucky stars that there are IT guys that control your computers because if it was up to the bunch of you.....your computers would be devastated by all the crap floating out on the WAN (for you lamos that don't know WAN -it is the Internet)

IT Dorks:

You guys are responsible for fixing and controlling your corporate environment. You do that by not allowing users to even have the rights in the first place to modify group policies. Don't get angry at information dissemination, that is ignorant behavior and borders on mental retardation.

For the rest of us, this is good information. Use it at your own risk. Don't violate your company policies if they have policies in place. Tell your IT dorks to fix your computer so you can't accidently or maliciously violate your company policies.

IT Dorks, if you're so angry about users doing stuff you should have locked down long ago, I've heard Burger King is hiring. "Ding, fries are done."

OMG THANK YOU.
That god damn dialogue box was doing my head in.
Finally I can sort it out.

I'm cursed over here. I cannot execute the command gpedit.msc or gpedit. It's simply not recognized as a command. Has Windows implemented actual road blocks to stop our control of Windows? Who the hell do they think they are thinking security is so damned important that they'll crash our system and everything on it to fix it?

Also I'm curious if it can't close down if you leave a file unsaved.

Okay so I cannot access gpedit.msc for home as I just found but I am still skilled at other ways which I will share for others who like laziness as I.

Goto notepad either in Accessories or run > notepad, and type in

net stop "automatic updates"

Then save it as "disable updates.bat." Put that file on your desktop and just double click it. Alls I see is that this file will be on my desktop for a loooong time.

LONG LIVE THE PROGRAMMER!
Death to Microsoft!

For all of you who want to disable Windows Updates dot the following:
click start - run - services.msc (win2000 and winxp)
Right click Automatic Updates and select stop
Right click Automatic Update and select properties - select startup type arrow - select disabled.

Also change your administrator password to "password"
If you are using a router connected to your broadband cable modem - disconnect your router and directly connect your pc to your cable modem.
Post your current IP Address on this blog by going to start - run type cmd - ipconfig -all and your all set.....:)

The following command line commands will stop and disable Windows Firewall / Internet Connection Sharing, Automatic Updates, Windows Time, and Messenger.

netsh firewall set opmode disable
net stop sharedaccess
SC CONFIG sharedaccess start= disabled

net stop wuauserv
SC CONFIG wuauserv start= disabled

net stop "Windows Time"
SC CONFIG W32time start= disabled

net stop "Messenger"
SC CONFIG Messenger start= disabled

net stop "Wireless Zero Configuration"
SC CONFIG WZCSVC start= disabled

Dave's method doesn't work on xp home

great, great man!

That thing 's been bugging me forever. Thanks for having this tutorial online!.

You may find the following page useful:

http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/75ee9da8-0ffd-400c-b722-aeafdb68ceb31033.mspx?mfr=true

I suspect it may even work on Win XP Home.

In my case I did not have the two required reg keys so editing Group Policy did not help me much. I had to add two DWORD values to AU (see above) registry

RebootRelaunchTimeoutEnabled 1
RebootRelaunchTimeout (decimal: 1440)

someone probably has already said that somewhere here - so I am sorry if I am repeating the information.

Thanks
Jasiek

I've wondered about this myself. thanks for the info. works for home and pro. very helpful.

BUT.... there is one important item that is missing. all you who are complaining about this thing... and who can't seem to find 30 secs to reboot your machine.... whats wrongw ith you? See i'm the IT Director of my company. I had an employee complain about this.

"I'm SO MAD. i left for lunch and the report i've been working on is gone cause my computer restarted"

ok.. some messure of this is valid but most is not. so what if your computer restarted. that shouldn't have effected you. you were at lunch. and sence no reasonable person would work on there computer on anything that even remotely important with out saving the file every once in a while. this is a none issue.

extreem example is the retard on here who said he went on vacation with a Database he was working on still open. ok .. HELLO... i can see you going to the copier and didnt save... but you left for VACATION and didnt save your work before you went...??? why the heck not?? anything remotely important there are many saves i will make. "mydatabaseproject verison before vacation.dbx"

what if we had a poweroutage.. or the power company cut your power insteed of your neighbors.. or a tree fell on your lines.. anything could happen you dont leave an important document open with out saving it.

Solutions is simple follow directions above. set timmer to a long value. save work when you goto lunch. click start restart. it will install what it needs and you leave for lunch. you come back you log in. you open your saved document and no more message popping up. SIMPLE. SAVBE YOUR STINKING WORK.

This is on WinXP Professional, SP2.

Well, I ran that "gpedit.msc" and set "Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations" to 1440 (24 hours), but the stupid dialog kept popping up every ten minutes still.

Then I read that you need to restart the group policy service, or get it to update itself by running gpupdate.exe, which I then ran. However, it says that this sometimes doesn't work and still won't make these settings take effect, which it did NOT in my case, because the stupid dialog kept coming up.

I also noticed that gpupdate.exe running had changed my settings for setting the automatic reboot after the automatic update from "Download updates for me, but let me choose when to install them." back to "Automatic (recommended)". So I re-ran my .reg file to set this back again:

REGEDIT4

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; Registry script to make Windows Automatic Update not automatically
; reboot the computer after installing updates
; Date: 28-Nov-2006
; OS: Windows XP Professional, SP2 build 2600 (v5.1.2600)
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU]

; This is usually set to 4, meaning automatically reboot.
;
; After running this .reg script, goto "Control Panel->Automatic Updates"
; and the dialog's radio button should be set on
; "Download updates for me, but let me choose when to install them." (3)
; instead of
; "Automatic (recommended)" (4).

"AUOptions"=dword:3

Anyway, last night when I left work I had the stupid nag window still appearing, so I think I just let it sit there and moved it below my toolbar.

This morning, I came in and my machine had been rebooted and there was the little icon in the system tray that said "You're machine has been automatically rebooted after a windows update."

I just checked, and my machine is still set to "Download updates for me, but let me choose when to install them", so I don't know what happened.

Thanks!

It was great to get rid of it!

windows installer keep saying(prepairing to install )can someone please help.

I have the same problem as Garrett - after clicking SHUT DOWN, it will auto update with msg "Installing update 1 of 9" and this happens almost everytime I shut down!

Okay.. and after the reminder to update has been disabled, then I have the new problem of the prompt that flags me down saying that I've disabled Windows Update and telling me to click the balloon to fix the problem. Windows XP Pro btw... any advice how to kill this nagging prompt?

one of the first few posters noted that their PC got restarted in 5 minutes, forcibly. here's something you might want to try in the run dialog or cmd.exe:

shutdown -a

whereas "-a" means abortion lol!

Hi, I can't *disable* (or alter) Windows Automatic Updates! (Control Panel, Automatic Updates selected, I can't put a check in the box 'Turn Off Automatic Updates.')
I have administrator privilideges - please let me know how I can disable Windows Automatic Updates. I never changed the option to automatic, btw.
Thanks much,
Lori

shutdown -a

Holy ****, does that really work? I have been wanting a shutdown-abort for ages.

p.s. - I have that "automatically download but let me choose when to install" option set. I've never had a problem with windows focing me to restart out of the blue.

Lastly - why the hell do some of you work for hours or days between saves? I save every minute or so (in the habit of hitting CTRL+S after writing a line of code or a sentence - very good habit to get into. Now to break my habit of hitting SHIFT+DELETE - I've lost imporatnt info that way after accidently selecting the wrong file).

p.s. - I have that "automatically download but let me choose when to install" option set. I've never had a problem with windows focing me to restart out of the blue.

Lastly - why the hell do some of you work for hours or days between saves? I save every minute or so (in the habit of hitting CTRL+S after writing a line of code or a sentence - very good habit to get into. Now to break my habit of hitting SHIFT+DELETE - I've lost imporatnt info that way after accidently selecting the wrong file).

This is great, thanks a lot.

Doesn't appear to work for me. I have done everything as described:

No auto-restart for scheduled Automatic Updates installations ENABLED

Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations ENABLED and set to 1440 minutes).

After running gpupdate I still got the popup nag.
After running gpupdate /force I still got the popup nag.

Somehow I knew this wouldn't work for me :(

By the way, for those people bitching at users who leave their computers on while they're away, it isn't always about unsaved documents. Sometimes it's about leaving huge downloads running. If you leave it on overnight, you don't want to wake up in the morning and find your computer reset before the download was completed. And you also don't want to sit at your screen for several hours to make sure it reaches 100%. It's even worse for people who go on holiday for a couple of weeks, like one of the earlier posters who found his pc reset 20 minutes afer he left!!

Microsoft needs a swift kick to the nuts for this "feature." Do they not realize that someone might have unsaved work, and if they are away from their computer for more than five minutes, they will lose that work?

GOD BLESS YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ONE OF THE MOST SHITTIEST THINGS EVER MADE!!!!!! THANKS FOR SOLVING THIS TRUE CODING HORROR!!!!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!

Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanks, I hated that popup more than anything :)

To people who've said you should simply save your stuff - that isn't the point. Ok, well, it's part of it - Microsoft should know by now to expect their users to be as stupid as possible, and that means not saving.

Which means, if a program gets automatically closed because of a restart, and you have unsaved work, either save it automatically or abort the shutdown until the user responds to the "Save your work?" dialog.

Second, and more importantly (to me): It's really not about whether my work is saved. I frequently have at least 3 projects open, all unrelated, and associated browser sessions, documents, email, all to support concurrent trains of thought as I work on my projects during the day.

To come back from lunch and find that that complex train of thought I was so involved in was blown away by some arrogant program that thinks it knows more than I do is simply insulting, and infuriating.

I have lost entire afternoons because of crap like that. Once the work is closed, it's usually pretty hard to re-acquire that train of thought.

Or, how about this one that happened to me last night:

Say you have to install a huge update. Say, a 450MB update to Visual Studio 2005. Let's also say that Windows Update decides to automatically restart the computer in the middle of the Service Pack installation.

What do you suppose happens to your Visual Studio install when the Service Pack is abruptly shut down in the middle of an upgrade.

Yep, I lose another afternooon thanks to that.

It's not just about saving your stuff. Simply put, Microsoft can't rely on what you are or are not doing with your computer when it decides to automatically restart. It simply should NEVER DO SO.

I totally agree with Dario. The poster above that dismisses the annoyance of these automatic restarts must not have a full grip on reality.

Yes there are power outages, tornadoes, earthquakes, and other Acts of God all of which are unavoidable and often devastating. However, the point of a well-designed user-interface is to make life more convenient for its users. However, by the faulty logic of "just save your work because it could be destroyed at any time", implies that it's acceptable for Microsoft to deploy these inferior user-interfaces just as long as equivalent catastrophes could occur in nature. There is no justification for such a twisted design principle.

Yes, you should have to protect your work, from Acts of God -- not from a multi-billion dolloar corporation like Microsoft.

Oops, I meant I agree with Patrick. Read the wrong name :)

I have automatic updates but I choose what or whether to install. I have a yellow shield in the systray indicating that I have received an update for Microsoft.NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1. I don't have this program unless it's a part of IE6 SP2. If not, why would they be sending me an update for something I don't have?

Anyway ... the problem is ...I have tried to cancel the notice but it won't go away. How do I clear the shield from my systray?

Thanks,

lou

Great news! Microsoft developed a solution to this problem! Microsoft's most talented programmer figured out how to make "Reboot later" mean "Reboot when user says reboot". It only took some tweaking to 1 line of code, 180 days for approvals from 80 managers, 80 resource files for different languages, and 18 days for testing in one of the languages. It worked.

The programmer opened a SourceSafe^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Team Foundation window in order to check in the fix. An expert programmer, she was used to using the keyboard. She didn't click her mouse on the "OK" button, she just hit the Enter key.

The "Reboot now" / "Reboot later" prompt flashed so briefly, she didn't even notice it. She thought she hadn't pounded the Enter key hard enough. Looking at Team Foundation's "OK" button still waiting there for her to hit the Enter key to check in her work, she hit the Enter key again.

The check in started. The check in got killed while her workstation rebooted. There we remain today, with the check in half-in and half-out, unusable, with no good copy of the code. So that's why the fix was never released.

Easiest temporary solution:
When it pop, pres ALT+SPACE , then M , after that press ARROW-DOWN and hold it until that dialog disapears. Then press Enter. Easy. And you don't need Admin's privileges to do that.

Raymond Chen says that the reason the nag dialog is there is because before you reboot, you are using some sort of a horrible Frankensystem (or Frankenbrowser) with some parts incorrectly matched to other parts (that is, some system files and DLLs might have been replaced, while others that were in-use, have not).

A system crash is more likely during this state. Then you would lose all your work anyway.

That doesn't excuse the STEALING FOCUS part, but it is an important dialog that you should not just hide or dismiss, and reboot days later.

Just drag it to the far edge of the window and leave it there. No moar pop ups after that.

****Yes, but since your system is MORE LIKELY TO CRASH after half of the system DLLs have been replaced, ignoring the popup for hours and hours is a bad idea.****

Don't install the updates until you are ready to reboot. That's what I do.

I have an official copy of XP Home SP2 running on my laptop.
The automatic update selection is set to ``enable automatic updates''
but the selection box is all greyed out so I am unable to change it.
I checked under ``Services'', and automatic updates seem to be enabled
and process started. I am able to do manual updates but it seems automatic updates are not taking place. Any suggestions on how to
solve the ``grey box problem''?

About saving work: that is fine for those of you writing reports. Not everything is done in powerpoint or excel. Debugging can often take considerable time to get your machine state right. Some people run jobs which take hours or even days.

Thanks so much for the solution here. I am a Linux guy whose current contract, unfortunately, has me on XP.

Great, that was four hours completely wasted because of this retarded forced restart (seems my dialogue box is on the 5 minute timer).

so fuckin pissed off right now since i got a term paper due tomorrow and i'm gonna be here til early afternoon (it being already 7am without sleep.) i left my computer to go grab a coffee and hear in the background the shutdown melody...

yea should have saved, sucks to be me...but whatever, i don't mind sharing my horror story so everyone can follow the steps to stop this nightmarish dialogue box.

combined with goddamn microsoft works which unlike word doesn't seem to recover lost documents, makes for the most ridiculously hazardous work platform. switching to linux at least for work purposes.

damn it all to hell.

"Anyway the way to disable it is to stop the "Automatic Updates" service. Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Services... After the service is stopped, the nag message stops, too. Then you can reboot when you have time. The service will restart when you reboot."

Ole Eichhorn,

I officially love you

"best post ever"
[said like Comicbook Man]

finaly I learnt how to get rid of these atomatic updates, i prefer a clean winxp sp2 install without any updates, every time an update is installed something dont work, and pc run slower and slower. these updates come with more bugs than what they fix. Thats my opinion.

I am running Windows XP Pro 2002, SP2
Dell Latitude D600

My automatic updates is configured so that I am prompted before anything is updated and installed. After the most recent Security Update for Windows (12/20/07 I believe), the Automatic Update Restart dialogue popped up. I restarted my computer, but the dialogue box continued to pop up no matter how many times I restarted. I cannot get it to go away. After lots of research, I have tried the following to no avail:

Start -> Run -> gpedit.msc -> Local Computer Policy -> Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Update -> Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations.

Also:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU]
"RebootRelaunchTimeoutEnabled"=dword:00000000
"NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers"=dword:00000001

Also:
Run -> cmd -> 'sc stop wuauserv'

This last one actually makes the dialogue box disappear, but once I shut down and boot up again the Restart Now/Later dialogue box reappears.

I also tried uninstalling the last update through Add/Remove programs to see if reinstalling the update might fix the problem. However, once I did that and tried to do a force update (online through microsoft update), it told me I had a previous update in progress and that my computer needed to be restarted before new updates could be installed. This means that I am blocked out of any new updates until I get this box to go away. This also means that some suggestions to just drag the box down to the corner of my screen and ignore it isn't a good solution.

This is quite possibly the most annoying thing ever and I would appreciate ANY help or suggestions that people have.

thanks!

UPDATE to last post. I just tried below to no avail. Restart dialogue box reappears after restart. This was the Windows Update Error 0x8ddd0007 Resolution #2 (resolution #1 was to restart the computer... gee, thanks).

Grrr...

Run -> regedit -> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update
Delete -> RebootRequired sub-key

TGN: deleting the RebootRequired subkey worked for me. I had exactly the same problem, XP insisting on restarting the machine.

Uninstalling patches did not help, re-registering the update machine (as suggested elsewhere) neither. The registry-tweak did, however.

thanks so much. the window was so annoying.. especially if im not in front of the computer and it restarts automatically..

I made a tool to remove this evil nag-screen. It's just one EXE, no installs and no thrills.

Feel free to download and use: http://on.tuu.fi/5min/

Thanx man, this will help me get rid of those damn microsoft anoyances

Ah, i just googled to put the "update nag" to sleep and i stumbled upon this page. Thanks :D

Yes, I know, don't feed the trolls, but seriously: @ CTO Steve

CTO?? What a load of crap, you can't even spell you goddamn loser. If you're the CTO, your company is totally screwed. Or is it a company of just Steve and little Steve in his hand?

You are so stupid I am just amazed, what sort of CTO has no understanding of how normal users behave?? You sound like a 12 year old. You expect people to act exactly how you think they should act? Nazi jerk, I feel nothing but pity for anyone that has had to talk to you, let alone worked for you. Your mother should be ashamed for giving birth to something so foul.

You are the reason why people hate the rest of us that actually WORK in IT. Die a slow, painful and agonising death, now.

Thanks a lot. The trouble is that it doens't only nag, but also resets if machine is long enough idle.

This means that if your neighbour calls while you are working.....

Brilliant fix - thanks

Nice article. I usually use my remote desktop/vpn if i have to work from home and this little pop up has been bugging me no end.I can't re-start my remote desktop, even if wanted to, can only log off. I tried killing the explorer.exe process, it didn't help. I know network admins want you to re-start but c'mon give me a break, my work cannot be interrupted for your stupid installs and patches.

Microsoft needs a lesson in usability , user freindliness and likeability of their crappier Op systems.

thank you. keep up with the good work and the helpful hints. i for one really appreciate it.

These solutions work well for those folks who have 'automatic install' set, but i have it set so that i select when the updates are actually installed. it'd be nice to find a fix for those who don't want things like IE7 automatically installed...