Disable Restart your Computer to Finish Installing Important Updates in Windows 7

Getting the latest updates and hotfixes for Windows 7 is very important because it fixes bugs for better stability and also zero day exploits which could allow an attacker to gain unauthorized access to your computer. From the Control Panel, accessing the Windows Update allows you to manually check for updates. If you click the Changesettings link on the left pane, you get to set if Windows should install updates automatically which is recommended or never check for updates which is not recommended.

Windows releases security patches every second Tuesday of each month which they call it a Patch Tuesday. For some users, they prefer to turn off auto windows update because it may save them bandwidth and also prevent Microsoft from being scheduled to check for updates all the time. If you don’t want to manually check for windows updates, you can set it to auto mode. However this can cause Windows to ask you to “Restart your computer to finish installing important updates. Windows can’t update important files and services while the system is using them. Make sure to save your files before restarting.” You are given 15 minutes to save your work and Windows will auto restart. Or else you can click the Restart now button to instantly reboot your computer or click the Postpone button remind you to restart in 10 minutes later.

There is a way to disable the windows update auto restart prompt. Click the Windows 7 start orb button and type gpedit.msc at the search programs and files bar and hit enter. Expand Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update. Look for the setting at the right pane that says No auto-restart with logged on users for scheduled automatic updates installations. Double click on the setting and select the Enabled button and click OK.

This setting takes effect after reboot. If you want to stop the nagging windows update auto restart prompt that you are experiencing, you can do so by opening Windows Task Manager, go to Services tab and right click onwuauserv service and select Stop. This tip also works on other older Windows operating system such as 2000, XP, Vista, 2003, 2008.