Why does WinXP automatically reboot for updates?

[Guest]

Windows XP was telling me that it had finished downloading the latest
updates, and that I had to restart to load those updates. I was doing
work and in no position to restart, so I kept telling it that I'd
restart later. Yet it kept asking me every 10 or 15 minutes. Finally
I went away from my computer, and it must have asked me again, waited 5
minutes, and then restarted itself. I came back to find that my
computer had rebooted, and my work was lost.

This is a horrible design. It asks you to restart, and if you don't
answer in 5 minutes, it assumes that it is OK to reboot? It should
just leave the "Yes/No" dialog box up indefinitely until the user
responds.

This is the stupidest "feature" that I've ever seen.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Windows XP was telling me that it had finished downloading the
latest updates, and that I had to restart to load those updates. I
was doing work and in no position to restart, so I kept telling it
that I'd restart later. Yet it kept asking me every 10 or 15
minutes. Finally I went away from my computer, and it must have
asked me again, waited 5 minutes, and then restarted itself. I
came back to find that my computer had rebooted, and my work was
lost.

This is a horrible design. It asks you to restart, and if you don't
answer in 5 minutes, it assumes that it is OK to reboot? It should
just leave the "Yes/No" dialog box up indefinitely until the user
responds.

This is the stupidest "feature" that I've ever seen.

hah.

You chose (unless this is a domain environement) to get and install updates
automatically instead of getting them manually or allowing automatic updates
to download updates but allowing you to choose when to install them. You
chose that.

You chose not to save your work although you knew that Windows update was
attempting to reboot your machine because of critical updates you had chosen
(by your choice of installation/automatic update) to install. You chose to
do that.

Matter of fact - you chose not to save your work periodically and especially
when walking away - even though all manner of things could happen in your
abscence...

So the blame is Windows XP for rebooting when you could have saved your work
when you left - or if it was some process that couldn't be interrupted and
was running continuously (and you knew you would be doing work like this) -
you originally chose to allow Windows Automatic Updates to download/install
the updates for you?

Neat.

Use the tools, don't let the tools use you. =)

 

[Galen]

In (e-mail address removed) had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

Windows XP was telling me that it had finished downloading the latest
updates, and that I had to restart to load those updates. I was doing
work and in no position to restart, so I kept telling it that I'd
restart later. Yet it kept asking me every 10 or 15 minutes. Finally
I went away from my computer, and it must have asked me again, waited
5 minutes, and then restarted itself. I came back to find that my
computer had rebooted, and my work was lost.

This is a horrible design. It asks you to restart, and if you don't
answer in 5 minutes, it assumes that it is OK to reboot? It should
just leave the "Yes/No" dialog box up indefinitely until the user
responds.

This is the stupidest "feature" that I've ever seen.

It does at all the stations here? In fact it's annoying as all get out that
it keeps asking to have you reboot when you're just plain too busy to do so
at that point in time but it should not reboot automatically? What are your
settings for automatic updates? On all but a couple of machines it's set to
notify me but not do anything automatically.

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/
http://kgiii.info/

"We approached the case, you remember, with an absolutely blank mind,
which is always an advantage. We had formed no theories. We were simply
there to observe and to draw inferences from our observations." -
Sherlock Holmes

 

[Kyuzo]

Yups, sadly to say, you are not the first person to experience this. I
personally hate it also because I leave my downloads overnight sometimes and
someitmes I wake up to see that my computer is at the login screen. In your
case, you had to learn the hard way that you should always back up your work
every 10-15 minutes, or even every 5 minutes if you are a cautions person
like me. A solution I did was just to turn off Automatic Updates. This is
not recommended however if you will not take the time to manually check for
updates yourself. If you are dead set against doing that, then you can turn
off this feature by editing Group Policy. Follow these instructions:

1. Hit Start button -- Run -- gpedit.msc
2. Computer Configuration -- Administrative Templates -- Windows
Component -- Windows Update -- Enable the option "No auto-restart for
scheduled Automatic Updates installations (Please read description to verify
this is what you want to accomplish)

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

You need to check your settings for Automatic Update.
You also should know that the update installation is not complete until
after the reboot which should be done as soon as possible.
If the update is a security fix, you are vulnerable until after the reboot.

You should save in progress work regularly to prevent just such an issue.
A power failure could have had the same effect on your work.

 

[Vanguard]

Windows XP was telling me that it had finished downloading the latest
updates, and that I had to restart to load those updates. I was doing
work and in no position to restart, so I kept telling it that I'd
restart later. Yet it kept asking me every 10 or 15 minutes. Finally
I went away from my computer, and it must have asked me again, waited 5
minutes, and then restarted itself. I came back to find that my
computer had rebooted, and my work was lost.

This is a horrible design. It asks you to restart, and if you don't
answer in 5 minutes, it assumes that it is OK to reboot? It should
just leave the "Yes/No" dialog box up indefinitely until the user
responds.

This is the stupidest "feature" that I've ever seen.

Don't remember a Windows update, after completing and prompting for a
reboot, ever timing out and continuing the reboot on its own. It just sits
there waiting for me to answer it. I usually just drag the prompt out of my
way so just a wee bit of its window sticks out the side of the screen so I
can get to it later when I feel like it.

But then I don't let WU automatically *apply* updates. I don't even allow
it to download updates. I configure it to ASK me to download the updates,
and after the download then it ASKS me to do the install.

Walking away from your computer without saving your changed data already
evidences that the data really wasn't that important. How long does it take
to hit Ctrl+S (or whatever is the hotkey in whatever UNNAMED application you
were using) to save your data. So how do you know it was WU with its
prompting that caused the reboot? Could've been a power outage, someone
kicked your cord, someone hit the power button (twice), could've been your
unnamed application caused a crash. Could be you're infected with the RPC
pest that periodically reboots the host. If you were away, how do you know
it waited 5 minutes and then rebooted? You weren't there. You have a fire
in your kitchen and you take time out to answer the door when the pizza
delivery guy shows up?

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Yups, sadly to say, you are not the first person to experience
this. I personally hate it also because I leave my downloads
overnight sometimes and someitmes I wake up to see that my computer
is at the login screen. In your case, you had to learn the hard way
that you should always back up your work every 10-15 minutes, or
even every 5 minutes if you are a cautions person like me. A
solution I did was just to turn off Automatic Updates. This is not
recommended however if you will not take the time to manually check
for updates yourself. If you are dead set against doing that, then
you can turn off this feature by editing Group Policy. Follow these
instructions:
1. Hit Start button -- Run -- gpedit.msc
2. Computer Configuration -- Administrative Templates -- Windows
Component -- Windows Update -- Enable the option "No auto-restart
for scheduled Automatic Updates installations (Please read
description to verify this is what you want to accomplish)

You could have set the updates to download and notify instead of install...

Then you get the advantage of having it download them when you aren't
worried about it and then choosing when to install the updates (thus when to
reboot if needed) - because it will notify you they are ready to be
installed.

 

[Galen]

In Vanguard had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

Don't remember a Windows update, after completing and prompting for a
reboot, ever timing out and continuing the reboot on its own. It
just sits there waiting for me to answer it. I usually just drag the
prompt out of my way so just a wee bit of its window sticks out the
side of the screen so I can get to it later when I feel like it.

But then I don't let WU automatically *apply* updates. I don't even
allow it to download updates. I configure it to ASK me to download
the updates, and after the download then it ASKS me to do the install.

Walking away from your computer without saving your changed data
already evidences that the data really wasn't that important. How
long does it take to hit Ctrl+S (or whatever is the hotkey in
whatever UNNAMED application you were using) to save your data. So
how do you know it was WU with its prompting that caused the reboot?
Could've been a power outage, someone kicked your cord, someone hit
the power button (twice), could've been your unnamed application
caused a crash. Could be you're infected with the RPC pest that
periodically reboots the host. If you were away, how do you know it
waited 5 minutes and then rebooted? You weren't there. You have a
fire in your kitchen and you take time out to answer the door when
the pizza delivery guy shows up?

This is pretty off-topic but good and I recognize your name and you might
find it entertaining...

In the DTS list this was recently brought to bear:

When the update is trying to reboot and you havne't time
Start button
Run
net stop wuauserv
Enter (of course)
It goes away and the update still works as expected on reboot
I *think* it was Patty who came up with that one?

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/
http://kgiii.info/

"We approached the case, you remember, with an absolutely blank mind,
which is always an advantage. We had formed no theories. We were simply
there to observe and to draw inferences from our observations." -
Sherlock Holmes

 

[Drew Tognola]

On a related note along with changing the Automatic Update settings, if
using Microsoft Word you can go into Tools > Options > select the Save tab.

Check the boxes 'Allow fast saves', 'Allow background saves' & 'Save
AutoRecover info: every' (set for 5 minutes tops)



From Word's Help file

Allow fast saves: Speeds up saving by recording only the changes in a
document. When you finish working on a document, clear this option and save
the complete file with a full save. A full save may decrease the file size
of your document.

Allow background saves: Saves documents in the background while you work.
A pulsing disk icon appears in the status bar when Word performs a
background

Save AutoRecover info every: Automatically creates a document-recovery
file at the interval you specify in the minutes box. Enter a number from 1
to 120 in the box. If your computer stops responding or loses power
unexpectedly, Word opens the AutoRecover file the next time you start Word.
The AutoRecover file may contain unsaved information that you would have
otherwise lost. Remember that AutoRecover does not replace the Save command.
You must save your document when you finish working on it

Drew

 

[Jeff]

You chose (unless this is a domain environement) to get and install
updates automatically instead of getting them manually or allowing
automatic updates to download updates but allowing you to choose when
to install them. You chose that.

You chose not to save your work although you knew that Windows update
was attempting to reboot your machine because of critical updates you
had chosen (by your choice of installation/automatic update) to
install. You chose to do that.

Matter of fact - you chose not to save your work periodically and
especially when walking away - even though all manner of things could
happen in your abscence...

So the blame is Windows XP for rebooting when you could have saved
your work when you left - or if it was some process that couldn't be
interrupted and was running continuously (and you knew you would be
doing work like this) - you originally chose to allow Windows
Automatic Updates to download/install the updates for you?

Neat.

Use the tools, don't let the tools use you. =)

Yes, but just for me to understand, why does Windows "need" to reboot at all
after certain updates. I am just curious. I understand that certain files
cannot be overwritten when in use, but I believe I read (I am not an expert)
that some other operating systems - Linux comes to mind, but I could be
wrong - do not need to reboot for as many things as Windows does.

Why the difference (if it exists)?

Thanks.

Jeff

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Yes, but just for me to understand, why does Windows "need" to
reboot at all after certain updates. I am just curious. I
understand that certain files cannot be overwritten when in use,
but I believe I read (I am not an expert) that some other operating
systems - Linux comes to mind, but I could be wrong - do not need
to reboot for as many things as Windows does.
Why the difference (if it exists)?

First off, this is not a Linux vs. Windows argument thread.
I will make the comments that point back toward the heart of this thread -
which I feel is,

"Why did you choose automatic updates if that is not what you wanted?"
and/or
"What happens if you do not follow common sense you save your work more
often?"
and/or
"Common sense and your computer."

The fact is the OP stated they were using their computer - had work they
could not just leave alone to reboot. Chose to set it for Automatic updates
anyway - knowing that sometimes Windows reboots (requires a reboot) after a
patch. Kept getting the question about the reboot and kept telling it "not
now". After getting that question several times, decided that the message
was okay and that maybe they didn't need to work on this for a few minutes
and walked away (neglecting to save said work *if* they were not talking
about some continuously running process and not something they could
pause/save progress/start again in case something happened (power outage,
reboot, kids, whatever)) - and having obviously not saved it very much while
sitting in front of the computer. It rebooted. They blame the patch. It
*may* have been the patch - but they were not there and did not state they
looked at the event log to see if it said the system was being rebooted
because of the patches.

In any case - if they walked away and the power was switched off, they
contracted a virus/trojan/etc that reboots the machines as part of its
arsenal because of other poor maintenance or the patch made the machine
reboot isn't the key problem here - it's knowing ones own situation and not
planning for it and then blaming the plan that had been put in place (by the
person doing the blaming) for their misfortune.

Don't let the linux thing fool you too much - while it doesn't have to
*reboot* often, it becomes "as useless" during certain operations where
windows would just have you reboot. Essentially you are stopping certain
modular components of linux as opposed to the entire OS.. If that modular
component is critical enough - you might as well be (or may be) rebooting.
Luckily - the base OS is so limited that unless you are rebuilding the
kernel, you do not lose "total functionality".

As far as how much Windows needs to reboot.. That's a relative thing as
well. If you are the one controlling when to install patches (and if to
install patches) - then you also control the only self-inflicted occasions
for rebooting Windows systems. If you make yourself the complete slave to
automation because you are paranoid or don't want the responsibility you
should take with any OS - then you made your choice.

If you think Linux would be better for your needs, use it.
I do for certain things.

 

[Vanguard]

In the DTS list this was recently brought to bear:

When the update is trying to reboot and you havne't time
Start button
Run
net stop wuauserv
Enter (of course)
It goes away and the update still works as expected on reboot
I *think* it was Patty who came up with that one?

Does the update prompt asking the user to reboot actually and eventually do
a reboot if the user doesn't respond to the prompt? It hasn't happened to
me but then my user behavior is different than void's.

As I recall, when WU is working and waiting, there is a wu* process listed
in Task Manager. Maybe you could just kill that rather than do it using the
services.msc applet.

 

[Galen]

In Vanguard had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

Does the update prompt asking the user to reboot actually and
eventually do a reboot if the user doesn't respond to the prompt? It
hasn't happened to me but then my user behavior is different than
void's.
As I recall, when WU is working and waiting, there is a wu* process
listed in Task Manager. Maybe you could just kill that rather than
do it using the services.msc applet.

I've never seen it reboot automatically. I think I've used just about every
setting option for WU that I can think of? As it's a service, I'll have to
check... *does so*

Hmm... I don't seem to have a single XP (or even a 2k) system in the house
that's needing updating. I'll root for one with a non-critical update (I'm
sure I have one of those around) and when I find it I'll test. I'm not sure
if it runs as svchost.exe or by service name or what not? The only PC that
might be in need of updates is actually converting a VHS tape to digital at
the moment. I'll flag this and look into it.

Galen

 

[Plato]

Windows XP was telling me that it had finished downloading the latest
updates, and that I had to restart to load those updates. I was doing
work and in no position to restart, so I kept telling it that I'd
restart later. Yet it kept asking me every 10 or 15 minutes. Finally

http://www.bootdisk.com/xptop20.htm#4

 

[Galen]

In Galen had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:

In Vanguard had this to say:

My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:


I've never seen it reboot automatically. I think I've used just about
every setting option for WU that I can think of? As it's a service,
I'll have to check... *does so*

Hmm... I don't seem to have a single XP (or even a 2k) system in the
house that's needing updating. I'll root for one with a non-critical
update (I'm sure I have one of those around) and when I find it I'll
test. I'm not sure if it runs as svchost.exe or by service name or
what not? The only PC that might be in need of updates is actually
converting a VHS tape to digital at the moment. I'll flag this and
look into it.
Galen

Update, an XP Home system needed (really) an update to WMP 10 and that
required a reboot. After the install the service didn't appear to be listed
and so I'm guessing - I didn't have time to root about too much really -
that it was running as svchost.exe... I stopped the service per Patty's
instructions and waited. I used RealVNC to play with it a while longer and
when I was done I waited and waited more. I then rebooted and the update
seems to have gone through (it's now WMP 10) and the prompt was gone.

It's pretty neat.

--
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/
http://kgiii.info/

"We approached the case, you remember, with an absolutely blank mind,
which is always an advantage. We had formed no theories. We were simply
there to observe and to draw inferences from our observations." -
Sherlock Holmes

 

[Guest]

Shenan, both of your replies are not helpful. You are just saying, you are
stupid for not rebooting, or not saving your work. XP should NOT EVER reboot
without the end user telling it to. I do not care if it needs to reboot
because of the updates. It should not restart! There are times when a
restart is not acceptable! I run tests on my computers and I cannot save the
results until the tests are complete. The tests can take over a day. Do you
think I am going to sit at my computer for the whole test so I can say DON'T
RESTART every 10 minutes? That is lame! Make a useful comment or don't post
at all! The obvious junk you posted doesn't help anything! No software
should EVER restart the computer without the end user telling it explicitly
to do so. I have worked with a lot of software engineers in my life and you
strike me as one of them. You think the software programmers cannot be
wrong. XP's SP2 introduced a lot of junk and some good stuff. The
harrassing restart messages are BAD! If I want to risk not having the latest
security patch running this second, then MY computer should NOT be bugging me
every 10 minutes! There needs to be a simple way to disable these annoying
messages and especially the "feature" that decides it is going to restart
your computer even if you don't want it to!

 

[Guest]

Hi Galen,
Thanks for your answer! I needed it tonight as I am running more tests and
the computer wants to restart itself due to an update. I know I should
disable the auto-update feature, but I don't want to kill that feature just
so I can kill the auto-restart "feature."

Do you know if there is a permanent edit that can be done to make it so the
computer will never restart itself, other than disabling the whole
auto-update feature?

I really appreciate you as you did not just say something like "hey, you
should have saved your work" or, "Just disable auto-updates." It amazes me
how people will post the obvious and think they are so intelligent! Your
answer was an actual way to stop the problem until the next reboot! I
appreciate your help! I tried the gpedit.msc thing, but either the program
name was wrong, or it does not exist in XP Home.

Thanks again!

 

[Curt Christianson]

Hi ecellis,

You'll "catch a lot more flies with honey...

Shenan knows of what he speaks. That kind of response on your part only
serves to p*** people off. There's always the possibility that he did not
understand your query, maybe you weren't clear, etc.

This NG is overwhelmed with questions, many of which take research on
everyone's part. Give it time.

As far as the messages go, try Start>Control Panel>Automatic Updates, and
turn it off there.

--
Curt BD-MVBT

http://dundats.mvps.org/
http://dundats.proboards27.com/index.cgi
http://www.aumha.org/

 

[Curt Christianson]

Hi guys,

IMHO, whenever one is d/l updates, (or any significant d/l), you should be
devoting the machine to that only. Yes, theoretically Windows is a
multi-tasking OS, but why not make things easier, and do one thing at a time
when it comes to updates?

--
Curt BD-MVBT

http://dundats.mvps.org/
http://dundats.proboards27.com/index.cgi
http://www.aumha.org/

 

[Guest]

Hi, I had the same problem. Someone actually found out how to fix
Microsoft's mistake! Here is the URL that fixes this STUPID "feature!"

http://www.intelliadmin.com/blog/2006/01/keep-xp-sp2-from-rebooting-your.html

Eric