Hello,
I guess it was a slow day at CBS Interactive's CNet web site, or perhaps they are not very familiar with using Windows. This behavior can easily be disabled by a simple registry tweak. Here's a .REG file which does exactly that:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU]
"NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers"=dword:00000001
If you would rather script it using a .CMD file, that's easy enough, too. You can even do it in one line:
REG ADD HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU /v NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers /t REG_DWORD /d 1
Or, for the PowerShell-inclined, here's a three-line version:
New-Item HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate
New-Item HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU
Set-ItemProperty HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU -Name "NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers" -Value 1 -Type DWord
As always, you are responsible for your computer and should make a backup before making any changes to it.
Yes, Windows can be difficult to use at times, and the learning curve can be quite high. But these days that's pretty true of any operating system if you're coming to it for the first time. You can find the answers to a lot of questions by searching the web, and in case you can't (or you still have questions), you can go to a web site with an active Windows user forum like BleepingComputer. GeeksToGo, Neowin, Scot's Newsletter,Sysnative, WindowsForums or even Microsoft's own Microsoft Answers forum and someone will help you. Those are just a few off the top of my head, there are plenty of others, although you should probably avoid CBS Interactive's own CNet forums.
Regards
Aryeh Goretsky
