How to Disable Balloon Notifications Without Reboot

[Michael Moore]

We have a manually launched process for initiating Automatic Updates. It is
based on a update script from Microsoft:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa387102.aspx.

One of the requirements to the update process is prevent any pop up balloon
notifications that normally appear when running Windows/Automatic Updates.
We have our own window that updates the client with progress information.

We need to do this without rebooting the computer. The client will reboot if
necessary at the end of the process. We have everything working except
suppressing the balloons without a reboot or logoff/logon. The notifications
can be suppressed using a registry key, see:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307729, or using TweakUI.

Explorer.exe does not pick up on manually changing the registry which is
where the logoff/logon or reboot is needed. When TweakUI makes the change it
also forces explorer.exe to refresh, without killing the process, and the
balloon notification suppression takes place immediately.

We tried using a command from http://www.robvanderwoude.com/rundll.html to
force explorer.exe to refresh and while explorer.exe does re-read the balloon
registry setting it does not make an immediate change.

RUNDLL32.EXE USER32.DLL,UpdatePerUserSystemParameters ,1 ,True

The user interface to Windows/Automatic updates can also be disabled through
a group policy change but again it does not have an immediate effect.

User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows
Update - Remove access to use all Windows Update features

Anyone know how to do what TweakUI does and make the change to suppress
balloon notifications instant? I've searched and cannot find and hits that
reference this. The only requirement is that the option be scriptable from
either a .bat, .cmd, or a .vbs file.

Thank you,
-Mike

 

[JS]

Kelly's Korner, line 11 left hand column:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm
Not sure but this may be what your looking for, it's a vbs script.

JS

 

[Michael Moore]

Unfortunately that did not work. All registry changes appear to require a
logoff/logon, restart of explorer.exe, or reboot to enable them. I know the
change to disable the balloon notifications can be done without a reboot as
both TweakUI and GPEdit.msc's changes are instant.

Anyone know what those programs do that's so special?

Thanks,
-Mike

 

[Uncle Grumpy]

Unfortunately that did not work. All registry changes appear to require a
logoff/logon, restart of explorer.exe, or reboot to enable them. I know the
change to disable the balloon notifications can be done without a reboot as
both TweakUI and GPEdit.msc's changes are instant.

Anyone know what those programs do that's so special?

They permit newbs who haven't a clue to change a lot of WindowsXP
normal options that can be found otherwise.

 

[JS]

There is a utility from SysInternals named RegMon:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896652.aspx

Is does work on XP although the web site say it's been replace by 'Process
Monitor'.
This will show what registry changes are made when you use one of the tools
you mentioned.
You need to start by filtering out all the background registry activity
before you run TweakUI or GPEdit.
This can be done by right clicking on a repetitive and none useful registry
entry and selecting the 'Exclude Process' option.
One you have a stable (quite) display, then run TweakUI or GpEdit, press the
icon in the RegMon toolbar that 'Clears' the display and then use TweakUI to
make the change, RegMon should capture what was changed in the registry by
TweakUI for you.

JS

 

[Michael Moore]

Thank you JS,

I have monitored TweakUI and the Group Policy Editor with both RegMon and
Process Monitor and I can see my key being written and that explorer re-reads
the Current User registry keys, including my key of interest. What these
programs do not reveal is what mechanism is being used to initiate the scan.
We've located code on the MSDN site for C# that we will be exploring next.

If we eventually find something that works I'll post it here for all to see.

Thanks,
-Mike

 

[Michael Moore]

We found the answer but it's took creating a custom .exe with C# to do the
trick.
Take a look at this post on the MSDN forums for use of the WM_SETTINGCHANGE
message. This does the trick getting explorer.exe to immediately refresh the
registry.

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2296011&SiteID=1

Thank you,
-Mike