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I know for sure that auto updates were disabled before the restart, and they are still disabled now. Yet, when I did the restart Windows showed me percent ticker during shut down, during restart and I can actually see names of newly installed updates with today's date in Control Panel -> Programs and Features -> Updates.

Is this a known issue? Does Windows just brazenly ignore the prohibition of updates when it feels like it?

Can anybody suggest firewall level solutions to this, like prohibiting Windows or some parts of Windows from communicating with the internet?

ETA: ok, some internet research turns up similar claims, e.g. see here http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/operating_systems/windows_updates_sneaky_updates.html

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How long ago was your last restart? – soandos Mar 21 '12 at 1:26
about 2 minutes. Enough to run through the percent ticker, like I said. I am not sure if it did downloading during restart; maybe it downloaded previously and proceeded to do installation now. – EndangeringSpecies Mar 21 '12 at 1:33
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Other than an IT setting where updates need compatibility testing, usually the only people that turn off automatic updates are the ones that are afraid of a Windows Genuine Advantage update. – Dustin G. Mar 21 '12 at 4:01
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@DustinG. I turn it off so it can't automatically restart my computer... closing every program I have open... have you ever tried to recover 10 open programs, at least 4 of which don't auto-save (notepad, cmd, etc)? It's not nice. – Bob Apr 20 '12 at 15:48
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Rather than stopping Windows Update - you can stop it from automatically rebooting your system using Group Policy. This will work if you have Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate. – Dustin G. Apr 22 '12 at 5:42
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1 Answer

up vote 2 down vote

Dustin G mentioned this in a comment but I thought it merited a proper answer.

As has been said in comments, there are some updates the MS determine to be so important that they will be installed regardless, giving you no option to preview them.

What makes this irksome is that it will accompany the install with an auto reboot, which may may interfere with long-running e.g. overnight tasks.

if the windows version is suitable (eg Pro, Enterprise etc...) then you can prevent the auto reboot through Group Policy. (this won't stop the install, just present you with the standard reboot reminder dialog that you get when you manually run updates, rather than one that has a countdown timer to do it anyway)

open the local group policy editor:

Win 7: type gpedit.msc into the search box on the start menu
Vista: start->run-> type gpedit.msc

navigate to the following setting:

Local Computer Policy->Administrative Templates->Windows Components->Windows Update->No Auto-Restart with logged on users for scheduled automatic updates installations

double click it to open it up and select "Enable" to prevent the timeout of the restart dialog.

If you don't have access to gpedit.msc due to your Windows SKU, then create the registry entry directly: (create any keys that don't already exist)

32bit:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU

create a DWORD value called NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers and set the value to 1

64bit: same as 32bit but use 

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU

for the key path

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