Windows has a nasty habit sometimes of downloading and installing automatic updates and then prompting you to restart the PC. You then are given the option to postpone the restart, which is fine if you’re actually at your PC, but if you’re not then Windows just decides to do it anyway and you just might not have wanted your server or PC to reboot exactly when it did!



You can prevent Windows Automatic Updates from rebooting your machine by editing a group policy setting.

  1. Click on START then RUN
  2. Type gpedit.msc
  3. Expand Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update
  4. Double-click “No auto-restart for scheduled Automatic Updates installations”
  5. Select “Enabled”, then click OK and close the Group Policy configuration program.

Windows should now never automatically reboot after an automatic update.