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

Continually hyper vigilant about forced updates, last night I checked my system tray. NO NOTIFICATIONS. I then checked for updates and found I had updates ready to download. The notice also stated Windows wouldn't download them until my system was idle. BUT... the (stupidly inadequate) 12 hour "active use" selection was on during that time. I checked earlier in the day when it was off and there were no updates to download.

I don't know if the "active hours" pertains only to restarts, or if it also includes not downloading the updates which would then need a restart to install. I'd REALLY LIKE TO KNOW because I also have "NoJiggle" installed which is supposed to keep Windows from entering the idle state. If downloads proceed during "active hours", it would appear "NoJiggle" worked.

Weighing another instance of data loss against testing "NoJiggle" any farther, I chickened out, downloaded the updates, and did a manual restart during a time when I didn't have any scheduled TV programs currently recording on NextPVR via my HDHomerun tuner.

 

Where did you download NoJiggle? I could not find it.

 

Oops! So sorry, I conflated the names of two .exe programs (Don't Sleep and MouseJiggler) into one non-existent program. The actual name of it is "MouseJiggler" which when downloaded is "MouseJiggle.exe"
I got it from the source: Mouse Jiggler - Home
Even after I successfully got it into system start Windows10 nanny didn't allow me to deploy it beyond a single instance, always preceded by dire warnings. So to get it to stick in the system tray, I had to remove Windows protection from ALL unknown applications. (really?? seriously??) But still whenever I do a restart, "MouseJiggle reappears to ask me if I want to run it, and if so, active or zen mode, then the green arrow to send it to the systray. I've chosen active mode so the mouse actually moves about once every second. I'm guessing zen mode is similar to "Don't Sleep" which purports to prevent screen savers, etc., but can be over-riden during a forced restart.



Will "MouseJiggler" prevent my computer from entering the idle state and defer the downloads which lead to forced updates? Or allow downloads but defer updates until the computer is idle? Or will Windows updates just continue trampling over everything and forcing restarts?

 

Yes, you're missing something ... that's just an example of the commands, I actually have three jobs set to run:

• At 2am, active hours are set to 1am-11am
• At 10am, active hours are set to 9am-7pm
• At 6pm, active hours are set to 5pm-3am

Brute forced and ugly, but at least good for a test - and so far, it's working: I got a notice over 24 hours ago that a reboot was required and nothing has happened.

If this was a desktop that was always on, I'd just leave it as-is, 6 lines of code and 3 scheduled tasks would do the trick. However, this is my laptop, so it's more complicated - if I sleep the system, it could miss one of those reset jobs and wake up outside the window (triggering a reboot). I can't just tell set the jobs to "run if missed" because they could run in the wrong order and wind up outside the window as well. I'm thinking a simple job that runs hourly and sets the working window based on that hour - it can be set to run if missed and still do the right thing, and it doesn't have to actually refer to the reboot job's time. Could still glitch (reboot could run before it does) but I'm not sure I can 100% avoid that.

 

Since the brute-force method was working, I cleaned it up. I've got this batch file (yeah, batch, I'm that old) scheduled to run at startup and repeat every hour after that:

Fun integer math included to make sure it rolls over the hour properly at midnight.

 

Well I haven't had a problem at all since disabling the Windows Update service. The service doesn't even become re-enabled when Windows is restarted. Just have to remember to manually check for updates every so often.

 

Yes, that is the simplest solution, but not for people, who use Windows Defender or Store.

 

In additional to batch file you can just hide the running batch window, just for preventing stealing focus problems. Instead of starting batch directly just start it via .vbs file
Code: Dim oShell Set oShell = WScript.CreateObject ("WSCript.shell") oShell.run "C:\windows\system32\cmd.exe /c c:\rebootb.cmd", 0, False Set oShell = Nothing[/quote] You must edit path to your batch file.
Task will be pointed to start a program "C:\windows\system32\wscript.exe", arguments is a full path to you vbs file, ex.
"C:\hidereboot.vbs"
Start in — C:\windows\system32\
I run it with "run with highest privileges" option on general tab. Also check 'Run whether user is logged or not" .

Edit:
'Run whether user is logged or not" prevents task to start in my case. It runs manually but in automatic mode it fails with error Error Value: 2147943726 and it can not be fixed with solutions found across the web.

 

The scheduler job I posted earlier is doing the trick, my system has wanted to reboot for 3 days now and hasn't done it. I still have the notification that a reboot is pending (so good reminder it's going to spend some time updating when I finally reboot), but it hasn't yanked the rug out from under me.

Not the perfect solution for everyone, but it's doing the job for me. *Smile

 

Batch works perfectly for me too also. Thanks.

 

About the script adjusting active hours based on the current time, I wrote a tiny batch script before I saw cbarn's (I'm that old too):
Code: :: Setting Active Hours Start (AHS) and End (AHE) times to 1 hour before the current time through 9 hours after the current time, i.e., a total of 10 hours window @ECHO off set /a AHS=%time:~0,2%-1 IF %AHS% LSS 0 set /a AHS=%AHS%+24 set /a AHE=%time:~0,2%+9 IF %AHE% GTR 24 set /a AHE=%AHE%-24 reg.exe ADD HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsUpdate\UX\Settings /v ActiveHoursStart /t REG_DWORD /f /d %AHS% reg.exe ADD HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsUpdate\UX\Settings /v ActiveHoursEnd /t REG_DWORD /f /d %AHE%[/quote] It's almost same as what cbarn wrote later as a batch code. Being a paranoid, I suppose it's safer to use Now-1hr through Now+9hrs window though. Glad to know that this method is working for cbarn and woffko. Also, use SYSTEM as the user account to run the task to avoid the cmd window popping up. Thanks for the idea, cbarn!
PS: For anyone new to scheduling, who wants to use it, here's a short guide to do the above trick: JustPaste.it - paste text and share with your friends

EDIT: After cbarn's info here, I've updated the batch script and other text to use a 10-hr window, instead of 11

 

Glad I'm not the only one old enough to use batch, it's actually surprisingly powerful if you bother to learn the idiosyncrasies of it. One of these days I'll get around to learning Powershell (probably 3 months before it gets deprecated).

I used a ten hour window because I read somewhere (which of course I can't find now) that Windows only honored a ten hour window. A little digging shows that it actually varies - on mobile devices it's apparently 18, on desktop/laptop it's 12 at the moment. Since I'm resetting it hourly I suppose it doesn't really matter, but better safe than sorry.

 

Yes, I totally agree. It's very malleable and clean, I like that. Never tried Powershell, yet. It's appealing though.

Oh, I didn't know. My batch'll reset it on the edge of the tenth active hour. Still, I'll update my script to be on the safer side. Thanks for the information!

 

Thank you, cbarn

I just encountered this 2 days ago when I opened my laptop for a presentation when, what to my surprise... Murphy struck.

I setup your ActiveHours=[NOW, NOW+10] script in my Task Scheduler and it's running hourly like a dream. Very clever work-around!

I hope that someday Microsoft returns to the kind of control with updates that we had way back when in Win XP.

Big time-saver and much appreciated.

 

I have an acquaintance who never installed the Anniversary Update and he has control over his updates. Is the Anniversary Update required? If he never updates, will he be in trouble? After I informed him of this thread, he continues to hold off.