A possible solution to stop Win10 from auto-rebooting after updates.

...And my PC did not reboot last night, despite the warning that it would! Today I see the same "previous attempts unsuccessful" warning, and a restart time of 6:42PM, and the "KB3200970" update from last Tuesday is still pending. I will report back when the PC does restart automatically. Stay tuned...

WinAero's renamed-Reboot-Task-Folder method has held off my latest round of updates from 12/14/2016 until today when I had to do a manual reboot on my Windows 10 Pro PC. My never-turned-off Win10 Home media laptop is still waiting to do the same round of updates.

The updates did still run when I rebooted, though, even with a "shutdown.exe -s -t 2" command (shutdown's help says -t implies -f for forced shutdown).

So it is impossible so far to avoid the updates altogether. But the WinAero method does seem to be able to hold off the automatic reboot.

Until Microsoft gets wise and adds a little command to delete anything named "Reboot" in the UpdateOrchestrator folder, that is.....

There is a possible other solution which I will try next: Disable automatic restart Windows 10 - Microsoft Community Max Green's answer, uses GPedit (only on Pro or later)

1. run GPedit.msc
2. navigate to Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Update
3. enable "No auto restart with logged on users for scheduled automatic updates installations"
4. reboot the PC.

There may also be interesting settings in "Configure Automatic Updates", but keep in mind configuring this key to anything but "Not Configured" disables the "No auto restart" key in #3 above.

I will undo the WinAero method and try the Gpedit method and will report back...

One of the GPedit solutions holds off updates, so far having blocked Jan 24's KB3211320 some three weeks with no signs of letting it through as of today Feb 16. And the PC can be rebooted without installing the pending update. There is a side-effect, though, see later.

The GPedit path is:
Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Update

The recommendation in the "Disable Automatic Restart Windows 10" link, to set "No auto-restart with logged on users for scheduled automatic update installations" did not work. But a different setting does, with a side-effect.

In the above GPedit path enable "Configure Automatic Updates" and set it to #3, "Auto download and notify for install". #2 Notify for download and notify for install" may work, too, haven't tested it yet. My PC has not auto-restarted yet.

The side effect is that Windows will remind you that your PC needs updates. The reminder is a gray-out screencover like UAC, with a message box asking to install updates, and an "Get Updates" button and nothing else. No "No thanks", no "Cancel", and you can't do anything on the screen unless you respond to that box. However, the gray-out screencover is just a running program, and a VBscript can kill that program, if you can get the script to run. The VBscript I use is below, modified from a sample script from Adersoft's "VBSedit", set to run in a one-second loop and looking for and killing the offending screencover program "MusNotificationUX.exe", keeping a text log of when it does the kill so you can see if it is working. A Task Scheduler task can start the kill script:

Code:

' Terminate a Process, from Adersoft "VBSedit"
Const ForReading = 1, ForWriting = 2, ForAppending = 8
Set shell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
scriptpath = fso.getparentfoldername(wscript.scriptfullname) & "\"

'this confirms the script is running in the log file:
logfile.writeline "Starting " & now
logfile.close
wscript.sleep 60000
set logfile = fso.opentextfile(scriptpath & "WinUpdateNotifyOverlay-Terminate.log",forappending,true)
logfile.writeline "Confirming running" & now
logfile.close

do
strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _
    & "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
Set colProcessList = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
    ("Select * from Win32_Process Where Name = 'MusNotificationUX.exe'")
For Each objProcess in colProcessList
 set logfile = fso.opentextfile(scriptpath & "WinUpdateNotifyOverlay-Terminate.log",forappending,true)
 logfile.writeline "Terminating MusNotificationUX.exe " & now
 logfile.close
    objProcess.Terminate()
Next
wscript.sleep 1000
loop

Of course, being that it's a Group Policy Editor solution, one has to have Professional or higher to implement it easily. But GPedit just tweaks the registry, maybe someone can find out what keys get made or modified.