Microsoft doesn’t make it easy, so is here to guide you through the various methods to stop your PC from rebooting itself.
Nathan Taylor
It is, for a great many people, Windows’ biggest annoyance of all: the update reboot. You wake up in the morning to find that your computer has mysteriously rebooted itself, a realisation that is frequently followed by panic. “Did I save that document I was working on? Can I get my browser tabs back? How will I get my work done when that process job I left running overnight was interrupted?”
Amazingly, there’s no simple way in the regular settings of Windows 10 to turn such reboots off. You can choose to turn off automatic Windows Updates, but that’s very bad security policy. Better to try one of the methods below.
THE REGISTRY FIX
By adding a single line to the Windows Registry, you can disable automatic reboots. Just follow these steps: Press ‘Win-R’ and enter
regedit into the RUN field. In the registry structure, navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ Policies\Microsoft\Windows\ WindowsUpdate\AU You may find that you do not have a WindowsUpdate and/or AU key. Don’t worry: you can create them. Right click on the Windows key and select ‘New > Key’ and type in
WindowsUpdate , just as if you were making a new directory in File Explorer. Do the same again in
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WindowsUpdate to create an AU directory. Right click on the AU key and select ‘New > DWORD (32-bit) Value’. Name it ‘NoAutoReboot WithLoggedOnUsers’. Double click on this new value and change the Value data to 1 and click OK. The changes won’t take effect until the next reboot. After that, when updates are pending, you’ll see in the reboot menu ‘Update and shut down’ and ‘Update and reboot’ as options instead of the regular shutdown and restart.
OTHER WAYS THAT WORK
If you don’t like editing the registry by hand (and we understand that the prospect can be quite daunting for first-timers), there are some other options to try. Head to tinyurl.com/apc437-symantec. Symantec has created the key for you. Download and unzip, then right click on ‘Enable file in File Explorer’ and select ‘Merge’. This will accomplish the same thing as the guide earlier. Download a shutdown blocker like ShutdownGuard ( github.com/ stefansundin/shutdownguard). Use the task scheduler. Right click on the Start button and select computer management. Go to ‘System Tools > Task Scheduler > Task Scheduler Library > Microsoft > Windows > UpdateOrchestrator’. Right click on Reboot and change it to ‘Disabled’.
But we’re not quite done here yet. You then have to go to the folder ‘Windows > System32 > Tasks > Microsoft > Windows > Update Orchestrator’ in File Explorer. Right click on the Reboot file and select ‘Properties’. Then go to the Security tab and click on ‘Advanced’ and change the ownership of that file to your user account.
Then, one by one, disable write access to that file from all other accounts. (This is done to prevent Windows from overwriting your changes. You can now see why the registry editor version is quicker and easier!)
Windows 10 Pro and Enterprise users have a different option — the Group Policy Editor. In the RUN or search bar, type gpedit.msc . Go to ‘Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update’ and you’ll see a setting for ‘No auto-restart with logged on users’. Double click on it to enable it.