Windows 10: How to Prevent automatic restart in Windows 10 Anniversary Update?

This is hopeless for low tech people like me. I just want a simple computer that I can use without having to keep fearing what Windows may do to complicate things. Why can't I decide when my computer should restart? I tried to stop Windows from doing this auto restart by Googling and following those steps. I did manage to opt out auto restart but it restated it anyway. I was in the middle of doing something but got kicked out. The computer began to update without asking and it took over an hour to finish. After the update, I went to see if I can remove the auto restart option but the layouts didn't even look the same anymore. Then I got a warning stating that I needed to reconnect my File History drive. I don't recall ever disconnecting the File History drive since I didn't even know that exist! Windows seems to get more and more ridiculous after each update. I think they want us to get a Mac.

 

Sorry, edited because of duplicate info. Solution was provided in Post #5.

How to Prevent automatic restart in Windows 10 Anniversary Update?

 

Hi, like you, I'm a victim of MS design decisions, if you wish to look at it that way. Agreed, their policy on restart is crazy, complicated by the difference in Win 10 home and Pro, and continual periodic tweaks and changes to the way these things are controlled, without prior explanation except by web articles people might happen to write.

I have the advantage of having learnt to think defensively over many years, and having used disk imaging through several generations of Windows. In all that time I've experienced unbootable PCs, loss of partition structure, disk failure.

But I've never lost any significant data.

PCs are not yet- and may not be in my lifetime- a pure consumer item. That's because, in part, MS has not yet completely separated the OS from user settings and data- and I doubt they ever will.

============================================
Restart and updates.
1. '10 Pro lets you schedule restarts.
2. Active hours (anniversary edition) allows you to set up to a 12 hour period in which Windows will not restart
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/4...dows-10-a.html
3. I have noted, however, that even if an update requires a restart, and notifies me of this during this period, a restart does not occur at the end of it. This surprised me.
4. Running 'Don't Sleep' - a free utility- allows me to block restarts (and sleep/hibernate...) or schedule them.
(It clearly shouldn't be necessary to have to resort to such things).

Helpful people publish things like this:
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/8...dows-10-a.html

 

Victim is how I feel now. The computer restarted this morning and within 10 hour it wanted to restart again. Why on earth would they make such design to restart my computer that often? When it restarted this morning I couldn't access my computer for over an hour. I certainly don't want it to restart a second time on the same day!

Unfortunately, I have Windows 10 Home, not pro, so I can't schedule restart. I could see the window but everything is greyed out and I can't click on the drop down menu to make change. I may have to do install that Don't Sleep to stop this restarting madness. I miss Windows 7, it was simple and straight forward. If not because some of the software I am using require Windows 10 I would remove 10 and reinstall 7. I just want to use a computer without having to deal with these new "problems" MS creates everyday. So frustrating!

 

Along with Active Hours the AU introduced a new Restart Options setting. This is normally greyed-out, but when a restart is pending it becomes active. @althetrainer it's available in the Home edition too..

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/5...dows-10-a.html

 

Yes, I found out when I came back from outside I saw a popup stating my computer would restart in a few minutes. It was a good thing that I came in before it restarted again. Seriously? How many time do they need to restart my computer on the same day? You're right about being able to schedule when pending becomes active. I chose "later" then it let me schedule my next restart - Sept 30. I wish there was an option to disable auto restart all together. Windows 7 was so much easier, it never forced to restart, just waited until the computer powered off then finished installing update when the computer got turned on again. The updates never affected my computer performance. Now, this update is running in the background and slowing my computer down. Really annoying.

 

You can try this settings, but no one has ever reported if it is still working. Run CMD as admin and copy/paste:

reg add "HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU" /v "AlwaysAutoRebootAtScheduledTime" /t REG_DWORD /d "0" /f
reg add "HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU" /v "NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers" /t REG_DWORD /d "1" /f

But the simplest solution would be to disable Windows Update alltogether and install updates only when you have time.
You can sign up at Technical Security Notifications from Microsoft , to receive an email once new updates are available.

 

Thanks. I think you're right and that's exactly what I am going to do. I checked your link but seemed like notifications for IT people only. Is there one for just regular updates?

 

Those emails just contain links to updates, nothing really specially IT related, I do not even read it, once I receive an email, I just check for updates or you can check here https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...update-history

 

Oh okay. The way they put it was very confusing. I have already disabled automatic update. Will sign up for notifications and update when needed. Thanks.

 

That's what I do, but if you don't have all the right scheduled tasks disabled, too, I'm pretty sure that Windows has found a way to re-enable Windows Update and restart on me, but maybe I'm crazy. *Sad


One other thing that I discovered after I disabled the Windows Update service is that there was a *constant* stream of errors getting logged in one of the Windows log categories, caused by the Store app no longer being able to automatically update. After disabling automatic updates within the Store app settings, this stream of errors filling up the log was fixed. I also got the impression that Windows bluescreened once or twice on me soon after the Store app couldn't auto-update at one point or another, but maybe it was something else.

 

No, you're not crazy because it didn't just happen to you. I disabled update too but the day after that I turned off my computer it began to update. It was very annoying so I asked a support guy who told me only the Pro version allowed us to disable update, not the Home version. I am sick of this Windows BS and I am ready to buy myself a Mac.

 

On paper this does exactly what I would like to see as far as updating behaviour is concerned:

Access Local Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc).
Go to Computer Configuration/Administrative Templates/Windows Components/Windows Update
Enable "No auto-restart with logged on users for scheduled automatic updates installations"

Description reads:

"Specifies that to complete a scheduled installation, Automatic Updates will wait for the computer to be restarted by any user who is logged on, instead of causing the computer to restart automatically.

If the status is set to Enabled, Automatic Updates will not restart a computer automatically during a scheduled installation if a user is logged in to the computer. Instead, Automatic Updates will notify the user to restart the computer.

Be aware that the computer needs to be restarted for the updates to take effect.

If the status is set to Disabled or Not Configured, Automatic Updates will notify the user that the computer will automatically restart in 5 minutes to complete the installation."

I have not tested it yet, just discovered it.

 

Have tried the previously-suggested group-policy setting, without success; on the most recent update, Windows restarted itself anyway. This suggestion from SuperUser looks promising, however:

How to prevent Windows 10 from restarting the computer after installing updates - Super User

Essentially, it amounts to disabling the Reboot sub-task of the UpdateOrchestrator then manually altering the permissions on the task at the file-system level, so that Windows can't re-enable it on its own (in theory, at least). I haven't had it enabled long enough to confirm efficacy, but the logic behind it seems sound.

To quote "zrisher"'s comment on SuperUser:

 

I have never seen this task to re-enable itself, but then again, I do not use Windows Update and I disable all tasks.

sc config wuauserv start= demand
schtasks /DELETE /TN "Microsoft\Windows\UpdateOrchestrator\Schedule Scan" /f
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\UpdateOrchestrator\Reboot" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\UpdateOrchestrator\Refresh Settings" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\UpdateOrchestrator\USO_UxBroker_Display" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\UpdateOrchestrator\USO_UxBroker_ReadyToReboot" /Disable
schtasks /DELETE /TN "Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\Scheduled Start" /f
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\sih" /Disable
schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\sihboot" /Disable