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

Yes. Do not sleep appears to be working.

scottgus1 said:

Good detective work, NJC2!

I'll probably try this if a few more people tell us it works. I dislike playing around with Window's guts if there's an install/uninstall program that will do the job. Also, part of the problem with providing fixes lies in differing options/capabilities between Win10Pro and Win10Home. Win10Pro allows more control/options than the Home version. Don't Sleep definitely does not work on my machine.

Making NJC2's fix simpler, wouldn't it be great if {{SOMEONE}} came up with an exe file that would kick our computers off idle after four minutes?

Soo (edit here) I searched around and found an .exe file named "MouseJiggler" (free). I've installed it and it keeps the mouse active preventing the computer from going idle. So when I'm not using the computer for awhile I'll just turn off the monitor. Hope it works!

NJC2 said:

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.

Hey NJC2,

Thanks for the work to figure a work around. I hope it works. I'm running win 10 Pro. But I followed your instructions precisely, and I have one place in the task that wouldn't accept your recommended input. Here's a shot of the task.

Thanks scottgus1,
My task obviously didn't work because I had a pending update that got installed the day of my post. Thanks for the input. That reboot got me twice cuz I'm trying to do a data recovery on a 2TB drive that had ALL if my backed up data on it. Get this - I got hacked - both my laptop and my PC. A super guy at an AntiHacker forum helped me get my desktop cleaned up so we felt pretty certain my data was clean.
After deciding it was clean I used Paragon to backup my data, then I used Acronis to backup my data, and I made an Acronis Image of my Fresh install of Windows AND data.
Went to do a clean install of windows and restore my data, and my backup drive was just crawling. It's a WD Passport Ultra 2TB that is only 6 months old. It had all of my important data that I've accumulated over several years.
The data recovery is taking forever, and twice my desktop did a reboot in the middle of a data recovery write!

So if I had actually been recovering good data, good chance it got trashed. Grrrrr!

Thanks again for the help, and for letting me vent!

Winaero's tweaker offers an option to stop reboots. It sets up a task as you can see here:
How to permanently stop Windows 10 reboots after installing updates

Intriguingly, although I've not used that, and I've had on occasion a restart following an update pending and active hours period has expired, and I've waited to see if a restart occurred, I've never experienced an unscheduled restart.