Auto Update caused restart

[Guest]

Help, I was working on a term paper last night. I fell asleep with word open
and updates to a document unsaved.
Overnight my computer "automatically updated and restarted". My updated
work appears to be gone. Is there any way to get it back???

 

[Bob I]

nope

 

[Richard Urban]

Updates do not automatically reboot the computer. You are presented with a
screen where you have to press a button "Reboot Now"". If you don't press
the button the computer will NOT reboot.

You likely had a power failure and the computer bios is set to restart upon
power outage.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Uncle Joe]

No. Your unsaved document's data is lost. Sorry.

Since this might happen again, I suggest you open MS Word
and go to Tools > Options > Save and check the
"Save AutoRecover info every" box. Also check the
save interval box to the right and set the automatic saves
for say, 5 or 10 minutes. If your system goes belly-up on
you again, launch MS Word and it will open the AutoRecover
fiel. You might still lose some data from your unsaved document,
but you'll likely get most of it back. Once you get the AutoRecover
file up, SAVE it as a file. Do this before doing anything else.

Nothing beats saving the document as a filename "example.doc"
before you drift off to sleep again. AutoRecover is the next best thing.

 

[Guest]

Thanks to all who replied. I went into the "restore" files and found a 3:00
am restore point on the date in question. I reset my pc to the restore point
and then reopened Word. I found my work intact and ready to continue. A
particular thanks to "Uncle Joe" for the excellent hint about setting up a
time interval.

 

[Uncle Joe]

Congratulations on recovering your work. You were very lucky. (Smile.)

 

[Guest]

If the file is lost like you say, then why can forensic computer analysts
recover files from a computer that have not even been saved. They can also
recover any image that you have ever viewed on your computer regardless of if
it was saved or not? Also, I have saw on one of these threads that the lost
information is eventually "overwritten" if the computer is used many times
after the file was lost, so how is it possible that they can obtain documents
that were written but never saved and never printed?

 

[Uncle Joe]

You got me. That Sci-Fi forensic data recovery wizardry is
beyond this simple old goat's comprehension. From what
you say, they can recover data on hard drives based on
what you were thinking although you didn't hit one keystroke.
How? I dunno. The geniuses at the national Security Agency
have developed all type of techniques for breaking into
terrorists' and criminals' PCs and analyzing hard drives.

The moral: don't put anything on your hard drive that you
wouldn't mind others finding if you suddenly dropped dead
of a heart attack.

Another key thing to consider is the cost of forensic data
recovery. These folks are scientists and artists. They charge
corporate rates for data recovery. The individual usually has
no chance to avail themselves of data recovery technologies.
You certainly couldn't justify their services to recover a lost
Word file unless you had just won a big-time lottery.

 

[Plato]

If the file is lost like you say, then why can forensic computer analysts
recover files from a computer that have not even been saved. They can also
recover any image that you have ever viewed on your computer regardless of if
it was saved or not? Also, I have saw on one of these threads that the lost

Not true. I sub contract to a data recovery firm that deals in
recovering illegal pics on pcs. It's often not possible to get the proof
you need to present in court.

 

[Uncle Joe]

Read two weeks ago about a guy who took his PC in for
service and the technician found over 1,000 kiddie porn
images on his hard disk. Cops were called, and the guy
was arrested when he returned to claim his PC. Justice
was served.

Made me wonder why the techie searched the hard drive
for porn in the first place instead of repairing the PC. Have
nothing to hide on my PC but it makes me nervous to think
of a technician snooping around in my Word or TaxCut files
instead of replacing a broken widget.

 

[Plato]

Read two weeks ago about a guy who took his PC in for
service and the technician found over 1,000 kiddie porn
images on his hard disk. Cops were called, and the guy
was arrested when he returned to claim his PC. Justice
was served.

Made me wonder why the techie searched the hard drive
for porn in the first place instead of repairing the PC. Have
nothing to hide on my PC but it makes me nervous to think
of a technician snooping around in my Word or TaxCut files
instead of replacing a broken widget.

17 year old guys who have their first job repairing pcs. Seeing what's
on customers hard drives just passes the time.

 

[Guest]

The updates WILL automatically restart your computer! It is really annoying!
If you do not believe it, then update your computer and do not restart it.
As you know, you will keep getting those annoying popups saying to restart
with the option to restart later. Then, after not restarting for a while
(might be 24 hours or so), a new popup will come up and tell you:
"Updating your computer is almost complete. Your computer needs to be
restarted for the updates to take effect. Windows will restart your computer
automatically in 5:00"
Once the timer hits 0:00, anything you have open is closed, anything not
saved is probably lost, and your computer restarts itself! I NEVER want my
computer to restart itself. I don't care if the computer needs restarting, I
will do it when I want to do it. I run a lot of stuff on my computer and I
cannot just restart whenever it wants me to, especially when it just goes off
and does it by itself just because I am not staring at the screen for 5
minutes. I have lost a lot of work because of this auto reboot junk. This
stupid popup comes up every 10 minutes or so with the 5 minute countdown so
it is going to screw you over if you want to go eat or have to go out at all.
Thanks a lot Microsoft! I really love these stupid "improvements" that you
made in SP2. I know where the original poster is coming from. Unfortunately
the stuff I am doing is not recoverable as they are real time tests and the
software doesn't save the results until the test is complete.

If anyone knows how to disable the auto reboot "feature?" Why would
Microsoft do something as stupid as this? They should give you a simple to
access way to disable this! It should be in the administrative controls!

For those sc

Eric

 

[Guest]

Hi Frank,

I had the same problem and I was given this URL by it's maker. Check out
this website for a way to actually fix MS's mistake!

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

Eric

 

[Guest]

They DO. I finally caught one of my PCs doing this:

http://www.gerhardstein.net/picturestokeep/stupidwindowsmessage.bmp

I have seen this in 2000 and XP. After an automatic update, this window
pops up and you get 5 minutes to click "Restart Later" or it takes your
computer down for you.

I have a number of mission-critical computers that this bug took down and
left me standing there the next morning getting asked by my boss "What
happened last night???". I have since moved to Linux instead of Windows on
these systems for just this reason.

Microsoft, you dofus, FIX THIS BUG! Don't you realize some people use your
OS for something other than playing games and surfing the Internet???

 

[Bob I]

Humm, "mission critical", AND "Automatic Updates", someone needs to be
upgraded.

 

[MowGreen [MVP]]

To prevent Automatic Updates from restarting a computer while users are logged on, the

administrator can create the NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers registry value in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU. The value is
a DWORD and must be either 0 (false) or 1 (true). If this value is changed while the
computer is in a restart pending state, it will not take effect until the next time an
update requires a restart.

If the systems in question are XP Pro:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000294.html

See: 2. Modify Group Policy settings.


MowGreen [MVP 2003-2007]
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*-343-* FDNY
Never Forgotten
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