I want to turn off the automatic restart for Windows Update on Windows 7 Home Premium. How do I do this?

Anonymous

I went to sleep last night and when I woke up my computer had been restarted. I did not tell it to restart, I did not want it restarted, and I had documents opened that I cannot recover because it restarted. It restarted because Windows Update had a single update to install. I am running Windows 7 Home Premium, so I do not have the group policy editor, and the registry key that some websites mentioned to use to disable the restart is not there.

Keep in mind, I just want to prevent an involuntary restart. I do not want to turn off Windows Update, and I don't mind being prompted to restart. I just don't want my computer restarting on its own ever again.

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous

In Windows Update, click on change settings. Under Important Updates, select 'Download updates but let me choose whether to install them'. This will give you the control on when to install and restart if required.

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123 additional answers

Anonymous

2013-09-07T03:05:02+00:00

Hi,

This thread is being locked based on its age and the fact that numerous suggestions were provided to help resolve the issue raised by the original poster. We request users experiencing similar issues to create a new thread in the community so that issues can be addressed separately. This will help to avoid confusion and provide better visibility to each user’s issue.

Thanks and Regards-
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Anonymous

2013-07-31T15:48:23+00:00

That is NOT the solution. As soon as you start installing the updates, the computer will automatically restart. Sometimes, the installation takes quite a while, so this would block any use of the computer during installation, since you don't know when it will restart and destroy anything you're doing.

The solution is the Registry update described in the beginning as most helpful answer. Once that is done, you are asked by Windows update to restart immediately or to be reminded later. You can keep postponing it as you want. No automatic destruction.
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Anonymous

2013-07-31T15:36:14+00:00
Go to the Windows Update settings (Hit the Windows key and type "Windows Update"--should be the top option), and under Important Updates, you could choose one of two options:
1. Change the top setting to "Check for updates, but let me choose whether to download and install them". This will let you know what updates are available, and you choose when to download them and install them.
2. Change the same setting to "Download updates, but let me choose whether to install them" (I am aware that I am effectively repeating Djvan). This setting only automatically downloads the update to your computer--it does NOT install or restart anything. Imagine downloading a program from the Internet. If you set it to open whenever it finishes, it will start immediately thereafter. If you don't, it doesn't. You could even ignore the download and run the installer after a complete shutdown and restart, and it would still be on your computer, although not installed. That setting is effectively the same thing, but with Windows updates instead of some program like say, Avast! Antivirus or iTunes (which only ships with Macs).
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Anonymous

2013-07-31T15:18:04+00:00

Please, Microsoft, don't insult my intelligence, and be a little more flexible! If I wanted to work with all this behind-the-scenes magic I'd spend more time in my Linux terminal...

LOL...I like the last part (wish they had a little more robust of a scripting tool for the shell like bash for Linux)
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