Windows update reboots without asking

[Menno Hershberger]

I just happened to be up at about 3:05 AM this morning for a "nature
call" when I heard my domain host machine shutting down. I watched and it
restarted itself just as if I'd manually done a restart. Fortunatly I was
up when it happened because I had to restart Apache, my email server, and
FTP server manually. The event log shows Windows update service at 3:01 and
states that the computer will be restarted within 5 minutes to complete the
update. Well, that times out about right, because that's just what it did!
I thought you were always prompted for a reboot after an update. So it
looks like the only choice I have now is change auto update not to install
updates automatically. It's hard to tell how long it would have taken me to
discover that my web site was down when I got up in the morning. Apache
doesn't take getting shut down improperly very well. I also noticed that my
Norton auto-protect was disabled after the reboot. Does Windows update turn
that off too?
If someone started downloading a big download before they went to bed,
they'd wake up to a pleasant surprise too if that happened to them.

 

[Thorsten Matzner]

update. Well, that times out about right, because that's just what it did!
I thought you were always prompted for a reboot after an update. So it
looks like the only choice I have now is change auto update not to install
updates automatically.

That is the recommended setting. I would never allow the AU or any
other software to install something automatically on my computer.