Prevent Windows Update from Forcibly Rebooting Your Computer
We’ve all been at our computer when the Windows Update dialog pops up and tells us to reboot our computer. I’ve become convinced that this dialog has been designed to detect when we are most busy and only prompt us at that moment.
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.
I don’t believe this trick will work for XP Home or Vista Home users, according to the documentation that I’ve read. You’ll have to 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.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU
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.
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You know, I wonder if this is something some manufacturers are applying this by default. I’m using Vista Home Premium and it never *forces* me to reboot. All I get is that annoying prompt, which as you said, can’t be disabled.
I have mine set to notify me of new updates but not install them automatically, so I never get autorebooted. I get the annoying prompt after I install the updates, but I usually set it on 4 hours or whatever the maximum time is and don’t worry about it that much.
But how do you configure a server not to reboot when noone is logged in? This key only prevents reboots when users are logged in. There are only 4 options, don’t update, notify of updates but don’t update, update but don’t reboot if someone is logged in, and install updates and reboot. There is no way to install updates and reboot at a later time.
I’m not sure where, but there’s a registry setting that holds the temporary delay time. We’ve made ours to 999999999 seconds. it’s enough to let you hit ‘reboot now’ when you’re done.
Interested in getting a solution to the scenario where server reboot should be prevented when no one is loggen in.
Thanks very much.
I control Windows Update via a Group Policy which always worked fine until I deployed our first Vista machine. The machine was automatically rebooting without prompting while the user was logged on.
This worked a treat
I have Vista home premium and it automatically reboots without giving me any warning. How can M$FT make this code? I’ll be installing your hack if I can’t figure out how to turn it off.
Hi,
there are a few more things you can change in this reg key:
“RebootRelaunchTimeoutEnabled”=dword:00000001
“RebootRelaunchTimeout”=dword:000005a0
RebootRelaunchTimeout sets the delay of the “Remind me Later” window in minutes.
Thomas
Hi
I experienced the reboot without warning after important updates were automatically installed, whereas I already had add these registry keys like NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers etc.
In Vista Home premium, the Windows Update Policies in registry must be added cause they are not present by default. So I found were the Windows Updates settings were stored:
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update
And guess what? A key named “ForcedReboot” was set to 1 …
So I set it to 0 and I hope it will end this silly behaviour of rebooting without any warning at all.
Here’s a way to adjust both the auto-reboot AND delay of the annoying reboot popup in one spot:
Start->Run->gpedit.msc
Computer Configuration
>Administrative Templates
->Windows Components
–>Windows Update
—>No auto-restart for scheduled Automatic Updates installations [Enabled]
—>Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations [300 minutes]
Requires XP Pro, XP Media Center, Vista Business, or Vista Ultimate. I’m sure Win2k is in there too but I’ve never tried.
Ryan B, i clicked on run but then when i type in “gpedit.msc, it says windows cannot find….”
You didn’t mention what operating system you are running.
gpedit is not available on Windows XP home.
Ryan B thanks it worked like a charm.
I have a question how do I make my speakers work (sound) after I’ve rebooted my computer? Please answer this question!!!
I just disable automatic updates. It’s annoying anyway when you’re in the middle of something or perhaps you want to leave your computer on unattended?? Imagine that! I guess there are new uses for Windows that Microsoft hadn’t thought of — processes that take longer than 5 minutes and you don’t want to be there to wait for them.
Re: Cobaye’s comment of May 31st
So does it work to set ForcedReboot to 0 in Vista Home Premium? Have you had the forced reboot since changing that value?
Btw. the ForcedReboot value was not present in my registry. I have added it now, but would like to hear from people who have a verdict on its effectiveness..
I checked if forcedreboot was still there, and guess what it was set to “2″…. I think it is a battle against windows update we cannot win forever. Probably any update set back the value and this would explain why i thought this parameter didn’t work and why i was forced to turn off the automatic install to avoid the forced reboots.
I set it back to 0 and turn on the automatic installation, and i’ll tell you here if it works.
There is also an AUOptions DWORD in HKLM\Software\MS\W\CV\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update\ which on my Vista Home Premium shows a value of 4 when “download and install” is selected.
How do I prevent Windows from prompting me to reboot to install updates or closing forceably? I read the comments, but nothing directly on steps to do this for my WindowsXP Vista Home Premium. Will it corrupt my computer if it reboots and installs on its own? What will happen- the last time I was prompted- it did corrupt my computer- I was told never to accept these in the future…..help~~
Thanks for the post. The link to the Auto Reboot Remover has changed however. You can find it here:
http://www.intelliadmin.com/downloadtrial.htm
I ran the Auto Reboot Remover but have no idea if it worked. It just kept telling me to make sure I am the admin of my computer. But I AM logged in as admin..
i just lost a load of unsaved work on Word when windows restarted without even telling me. it overrided the ‘do you want to save your changes to…’ and closed it anyway. i’m more determined that ever to beat it now.
I have been trying for 3 weeks to find out how to fix my windows vista updates.I have done all the microsoft steps, but it still won’t update. Everything was fine until last June 24. I can’t even use system restore as the dates won’t go back before June 24. Does anyone know how to help?I would really appreciate it. I need to update the securities etc.Thanks in advance,…
Ryan B,
Thanks for your advice. It seemed a bit easier then the method in the article; mostly because I was nervous to add a new entry to the registry. Hope it works though, I lost a lot of work to Window’s draconian policies. Very very frustrating. Am I not the owner of this computer? Why in the **** is it telling me to work around ITS schedule?
Anyway, thanks for the help.
Vinny
Sorry both links to this file Do Not work…
Not working..
The link to the Auto Reboot Remover has changed however. You can find it here:
http://www.intelliadmin.com/downloadtrial.htm
If you have home versions of Windows XP, Vista, or 7, you can use Shutdown Guard:
http://code.google.com/p/shutdownguard/
Fix Infinate loop for Vista update install…
1. Insert your Vista Media into your dirve and boot from it.
2. Select “Repair your Computer” from the list.
3. Select “Command Prompt” from the recovery choices.
4. At the command prompt type C:
5. Type cd Windows\WinSxS
6. Type del pending.xml
7. Exit and reboot
Works w/o restore or reg fixes… simple quick, easy…. what else is there?
I wish my Windows Vista would just stop updating, period.
After every fourth or fifth update, I have to reload my OS!
Here is my problem, I get Vista Premium updates, they cause problems, I restore to an earlier time, set my updates to not update, but as I restore, there is a notice that “New Updates Available”. I am assuming that these were there from previous download before my new configuration.
So, this new update will reinstall itself when I shut down…right? Is this a never ending loop of me restoring and updates being installed as I shut down?
Toothless gave seven steps to what appears to be a way to stop this loop, if so, does anyone else concur with him?
Have you got a suggestion on stopping updates from self installing on shutdown?
This auto restart “feature” of windoze is SO unbelievably bad, that it is, even on its own, reason enough to never use windoze. Having used many versions of Mac OS, Linux and windoze, the huge, overriding thing I notice the most about using windoze, is that WINDOWS is in control, you are merely a passenger being told to do things the microsoft way, whereas proper OSes are designed to do things the way USERS want to do them.
I mean, an OS that just goes ahead and RESTARTS all by itself unless you tell it not to? Come on, is this windoze beta 0.9? Surely such a major bug as this should get removed before microsoft release a full version of windoze. Maybe windoze 7 is that version 1.0 we’ve been waiting for? Would it be so hard just to switch the options so that the PC does NOT restart unless you tell it to, as opposed to auto-restarting unless you tell it NOT to?
ARRGH – I have been frustrated with my vista laptop restarting with no warning and no time to do anything. One minute I am doing what ever – the next the screen goes black and its gone – I was starting to think that the newly installed Winblows had a virus or something even though my avg was up to date.
Anyway checked out the event log and found this restart manager thing. Bloody *&^&^%#&^%$%&^in g Microsoft – God I hate their arrogant insistence on defaulting everything to f–king override any preferences the poor end user might have, it seems with ever release they are more controlling of what you can do…I tell you – one of these days Im going to go to the toilet after a winblows upgrade and get told I cant pee or crap because microsoft feels it is a breach of my security or microsoft has removed access to my toilet or something!
ARRGH – and the worst part is how these things are never documented and you have to dig and dig to find them – anyone from MS reading this – if these annoying as hell ‘features’ are so good, why are they basically hidden from us and not documented?
Gah! Just lost a days work of 3D-animation work due to this…
I worked on a scene all day, left my computer over night and in the morning it was restarted.
Same thing happened to me. Vista Home Premium did an automatic reboot after installing some updates at 3 am. It caused some of the programs to crash when doing the reboot.
OK last straw of M$ failing me… This is MY computer. I tell it what to do, not the other way around! I’m am sooo done with this bs, time to give linux a real try! Micro$oft i smite you with all of my being may I live to see you become as relevant as Betamax is to the home video industry today! OBSOLETE!
To find out what your AU client is doing, open the windowsupdate.log file located in the Windows folder. The log will tell you if updates have been found for your system, when they will be downloaded, when they will be installed, the names of the updates, if they were installed successfully, and most importantly, when the system will reboot for updates that require it. Be sure to check the log before and after the second Tuesday of the month, when critical security updates are pushed. Check it more often to catch those downloads/installs that happen outside the regular window. Armed with this knowledge, you can perform appropriate and timely housekeeping (save files; close programs) and you won’t have to fight the update regimen anymore. Learn to love AU and the MS security effort by finding out what is going on with your system. Knowledge is power.