Windows XP's automatic update facility is clearly a good thing. Except when an update is installed that requires a reboot and you're working on the computer at the time. Then you get this lovely dialog:
Great. Right now I have one like this jumping up from time to time. Stupid thing indeed.
As a network admin, Iâm happy that my users CANâT turn it off. They would never reboot their PCâs when I needed it. I think thereâs a GPO that allows you set the reminder frequency though.
Surely, SURELY this reboot could be scheduled at a more convenient time? Couldnât it happen late at night? Or, couldnât 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 âAutomatic Updatesâ 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 didnât give me the Restart Later, it gave me 5 minutes and then it forcibly restarted my computer.
Arrgh!!
Iâve learned to live with this dialog box, however annoying it might be. I just push it to one side of the screen so that itâs practically invisible. It seems so much milder than the restart dialog box that one used to get with IE5 (I havenât 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 âboomâ it would do so. At least there is a choice ârestart laterâ in this dialog box.
Me too: http://jameskew.blogspot.com/2005/03/i-told-you-already.html
âRestart laterâ means âIâll restart when I feel like itâ, not âask me again in 10 minutesâ.
As Ole Eichhorn points out you can kill the dialog by stopping the service. I personally use the command line âsc stop wuauservâ rather than the gui, but its the same thing.
Actually, what you should do is select the option âdownload updates for me, but let me select when to run themâ in the settings for the automatic updates.
As soon as updates are available, you will see a yellow icon in the âtrayâ and as long as you donât click on it, nothing will happen.
When youâre ready, just click on it 
More often than not, the restart wonât even be necessary.
Brian â
They would never reboot their PCâs 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.
Sadly, disabling that reminder as per daveâs 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:
âIf the status is set to Disabled or Not Configured, the default interval is 10 minutes.â
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 youâre good and ready, which is likely to be when you shut down, in my experience.
Are you sure? I remember reading that the service had to be restarted for this setting to take effect.
At any rate, Iâm happy with the âdisable serviceâ method for now; the service will just come back after the next reboot anyway, since itâs set to start automatically.
Here is the proper solution that disables the annoying dialog without disabling the automatic update services or anything. Itâs 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.
You also need to enable Configure Automatic Updates for most of this stuff to work.
The problem with my wifeâs notebook is that even after restarting multiple times, the pop-up still comes up (a bug). BTW, I didnât find anything about it on MS Premier.
I found I didnât have the âWindows Updateâ folder that dave referred to in Spoomâs solution. ARGHH! Anyhow, Iâve taken Ianâs solution and a created a shortcut around it. Right click on the desktop, select NewâŚShortcut, complete the wizard, and youâll have a desktop restart killer (Iâm still in the experimental phase, so I donât know if the underlying idea works. I will greatly appreciate it if it does).
Thanks a LOT Dave. It worked at 100%.