Disable Auto-Restart Prompt after Windows Update (in Windows Vista/7)

Question

I've mastered how to disable/delay the Automatic Restart prompt after Windows Update deems it necessary to restart my computer in XP.

But, now I'm using both Windows 7 and Vista and that method no longer works. So far, I have not been able to circumvent the Restart Reminder popup that keeps telling me Restart or Postpone decision for 10 min/1 hour/4 hours (and then popping up again after that delay). Does anyone know how to delay that popup for something like a day (24 hours) or disable it completely?

Answer 1

Maybe this is the solution

http://techie-buzz.com/microblog/postpone-restart-after-windows-update.html

Download page here http://apps.nozavi.com/downloads/viewcategory/5

Some more solutions in this thread http://superuser.com/questions/190448/disable-restart-after-update-prompt-for-server-2008-r2

Answer 2

Try this command

sc stop wuauserv

see if it stops the nag.

You would need to do this every time you do an update that requires a reboot.

Other suggestions here, this article is for Vista, but maybe some of the reg hacks will work for 7 http://www.tomstricks.com/how-to-disable-the-annoying-windows-update-restart-prompt-in-windows-vista/

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Answer 3

You can manually edit the registry using regedit. The best explanation I've found is from the How To Geek here: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/prevent-windows-update-from-forcibly-rebooting-your-computer/ The link contains automatic ways I'm posting the manual method here:

Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search box or run dialog, and navigate down to the following key, creating new keys if they don’t exist.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU

Create a new 32-bit DWORD value named NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers and give it a value of 1 to prevent automatic reboot while users are logged on. Delete the value to put things back to the way they were.