Restart computer now/Restart computer later

[nancylebov]

My Windows XP machine just insisted on updating itself again. The warning box appears with two options: Restart computer now and Restart computer later--and the latter has a time limit on it. The computer will restart itself and complete the update on its own in the near future.

I hate this. I'd much rather find out what the update is and at least do a fast check to see whether something awful has happened to computers of the early adopters and/or suckers.

Is there any way for me to grab control of updates away from my computer?

Comments

Yes

[cheshyre]

1. Right-click on My Computer
2. Choose Properties from the menu
3. Choose the Automatic Updates tab

I've selected "Notify me but don't automatically download or install" but any option but Automatic (the default) will do what you want.

Re: Yes

[madfilkentist]

That probably solves Nancy's problem. Unforunately, it doesn't solve the problem for a lot of people in offices, where we're required by policy to have updates installed automatically, which is fine, except we don't want the damn computer rebooting on its own when we may be running something important.

If I'm at the computer, I can keep telling it no, reboot later, which is merely annoying. But if I'm away from the computer, then I'm screwed.

Re: Yes

[whc.livejournal.com]

The PCs an my work are set up to run updates at noon and they say they can't change it to a more reasonable time like midnight!

Re: Yes

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

they say they can't change it to a more reasonable time like midnight

Newspeak-to-English Translation: ...can't be bothered to change it to a more reasonable time like midnight....

Re: Yes

[captain-button.livejournal.com]

Ah, another undocumented feature from the same sort of people who make the virus scan of the whole HD run on my work machine during the day.

At least I am not yet under the automatic backup program like my colleague, whereby her hard disk is backed up every night, and she is therefore told she cannot have more than 6 gigs on her 75 gig HD.

Re: Yes

[gothgeekgirl.livejournal.com]

Yetanotherbatchofidiots. Nightly incrementals, weekly fulls. What's so hard about that?

Re: Yes

[gothgeekgirl.livejournal.com]

Your and madfilkentist's work IT depts. are a batch of idiots. We give our users a week's notice (after first testing it ourselves) and do the upgrades after hours.

Re: Yes

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

We don't get updated automatically at work; all updates are pushed by IT. That's the good news.

The bad news is that they push them at 1 AM or so -- which is prime time for us on third shift. They typically allow us to defer them once (for 24 hours, except critical updates), and then they become mandatory. We get a five minute warning, then install time, and two minutes to reboot. Could be worse -- except, of course, that any forced reboot is a PITA when there's work to be done. (Still, it's better than the NOT notified server reboots we underwent several times Monday night, causing some serious language in the room.)

Re: Yes

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Have done. Thank you.

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

Also, when you get that Restart Now/Later dialog box, you can just ignore it until you finish everything else you're doing.

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

According to the original description, the "Restart Later" had a timer on it -- if you ignore it, it will restart when the timer runs out.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

And also, my point wasn't so much getting to finish what I'm doing--it's that I want to choose whether the update happens at all.