New
#1
A solution to stop Win10 from auto-rebooting after updates.
Windows rebooted my PC again the other day, without warning, while I was using it. This is the 3rd time it has done this since "upgrading" to Windows 10. I've tried every possible work-around I can find, but MS keeps "fixing" them so they don't work. I don't have Windows Pro, so I can't use the GPEdit method. The active hours thing is useless, I it set to 10am to 10pm, but I'm on the computer outside of those hours too. It was just after 10pm and I had finishing typing something and I was proof reading it. Windows thought the system was idle and it went straight to the grey installing updates screen. There was no warning at all.
The first time Windows decided to reboot for updates was shortly after installing Windows 10. I had some work open when I needed to go to bed. I put the computer in sleep mode so everything would be the way I left it when I got up. I wake up in the morning to find my machine turned on and everything I had open was gone. It turns out Windows had downloaded updates during the day and although I have wake timers disabled, it woke the machine up during the night to install the updates and reboot it. That's when I discovered that Windows Update creates a reboot task after downloading updates. Modifying, disabling or deleting it doesn't work because it gets recreated by Windows Update every time it installs updates.
TL;DR
I don't want to disable automatic updates, so I have not done the metered connection work-around or completely disabled the update service. I wish I could have it notify that updates are available and let me chose when to download and install them like I could in Windows 7, but I'd settle for a way to stop it from rebooting and losing all of my work, and I think I might have come up with a way. I won't know for sure until the next time Windows Update runs, but I've done some tests and I think it will work. What I have done is create a scheduled task that runs a command to disable the reboot task. I have it set to run when the computer is idle for 5 minutes, which should beat out the 10 minutes the reboot task is set for. The command you need to run is "C:\Windows\System32\schtasks.exe /change /tn \Microsoft\Windows\UpdateOrchestrator\Reboot /disable". If you don't know how to create a scheduled task, then do the following:
- Open the Task Scheduler by clicking start and begin typing "task scheduler" until you see it appear in the list, then click on it.
- Right click and select "Create New Task..." (not basic task).
- On the General tab: Name it whatever you want (I called it Disable WU Reboot). Under Security options, change the user to run as SYSTEM, then check "Run whether user is logged on or not" and "Run with highest privileges."
- On the Triggers tab: Click new, in the Begin the task drop down list, select "On idle."
- On the Actions tab: Chose Start a program from the Action drop down list. In Program/script put "C:\Windows\System32\schtasks.exe" then in the Add arguments (optional) box, put "/change /tn \Microsoft\Windows\UpdateOrchestrator\Reboot /disable"
- On the Conditions tab: Check "Start the task only if the computer is idle for" and select 5 minutes from the drop down list.
- Click OK
If you leave the task to run as your user, when using the computer while reading something, watching a video over 5 minutes, etc., the screen will flicker or a brief flash of what looks like the command prompt will flash when it runs the task. This is because the system is technically idle and it runs the command. I found this annoying, but since changing it to run as SYSTEM, it doesn't do it anymore.
Last edited by NJC2; 14 Oct 2016 at 20:45.