Stop Windows Update from Hijacking the Sleep/Shutdown Button
As an avid user of the Sleep function on my laptop, I’ve been more than irritated with Windows 7 or Vista’s habit of changing the Sleep/Shutdown button into an “Install Updates and Shut Down” button whenever there are updates from Windows Update.
After the last time I accidentally clicked this stupid button when I just wanted to enter sleep mode, I decided to look for a solution.
Update: Windows 7 does the same thing to my Shutdown button, and this same registry hack fixes the problem.
Manual Registry Hack
If you’d like to manually create this hack, you can open up regedit.exe using the start menu search box and then browse down to the following key, creating the key if it doesn’t exist.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU
Add a 32-bit DWORD value called NoAUAsDefaultShutdownOption with a value of 1. No reboot should be necessary.
Now our Sleep button should be back to the way it was, but if you wanted to use the Install Updates and Shut Down option, it’s still available via the shutdown menu:
Download Registry Hack
Unzip the file and double-click on the StopHijackingMySleepButton.reg file to activate the registry hack. You shouldn’t have to restart anything, as the changes will happen immediately. There’s also a registry file to uninstall the hack.
I believe there is a similar option for XP, but I’m guessing the key is located in a different place.
Daily Email Updates
You can get our how-to articles in your inbox each day for free. Just enter your name and email below:
You are the man. I
Apparently this fix must be applied for each user account separately. In Vista, I ran the .reg file when logged in as Administrator. However, a few days later when logged in as a Standard User, I saw that the Sleep button had turned into “Install Updates and Shut Down” button.
But, Standard User cannot run the .reg file. So, how do I apply this fix for the Standard User account?
@tuttle Right click the .reg and choose run as administrator. UAC will ask for the admin password, then you can run it.
@tuttle: You can add the value listed in this article to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU and it will apply to all users.
What would be really clever is a hack that would let Updates steal the sleep button but then force a restart and resleep when the update installation was complete.
FWIW the option to enable/disable this feature is available in the Group Policy Object Editor (run: gpedit.msc) under Computer Configuration->Administrative Templates->Windows Components->Windows Update. The setting is “Do not display ‘Install Updates and Shut Down’ option….