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

Here's an idea Microsoft.

How about one last update that fixes such a ridiculous behavior.  I have changed all the settings as per the responses in this blog, and then after I update manually once, all the settings go back to force restart in the middle of the night.

I wonder how many World Wide FTEs Microsoft has wasted with this stupid idea.  It's got to be in the Billions.

Of course you're vulnerable until you have fully installed a patch.  Of course, that means you should just leave your computer switched off all the time, because it will never be fully patched.

If my computer is not fully patched, what is the risk?  I will lose time and data if it is compromised.

If my computer reboots when I'm in the middle of doing something, and have unsaved data in an application, what's the risk?  I will lose time and data.

If I'm running Home Premium, how do I mitigate that second risk?  The only way thru the UI is to switch off Windows Update (either partially or fully).

What I find annoying, is when it actually tells me I have an update, and I actually go in and install it before it restarts, 75% of the time it actually installs them without having to restart the computer.  Why it can't do this by default when it doesn't need a reboot is a mystery to me...

thank you abberance this came in handy while scanning a customers hard drive for deleted files. I would have had to start over again and potentially corrupt the disk more.

PABear - The bove is a side job, On my REAL work computer - If the computer restarts at the wrong time i could very possibly loose thousands in an instant  if not millions a year while entering information because my business software cannot auto-recover.

 I will be altering this tomorrow on all our terminals. WeI use an inventory/accounting system plus administrate a webstore, If I loose data many people get screwed. When our computers 'crash' or get turned off unexpectedly ghosts and gremlins appear in the database which are a pain to rectify. If orders get lost we loose face and confidence from our customers.

Jamysee is right If I chose to control when to update then the time spent waiting is still vunerable. I worked on someones old XP machine the other day who has not yet installed SP3. The deal with that is the USER choose not to, Not Microsoft.

My computer can wait until 5pm to shut down. Microsoft should have an easy to find option to shut auto restart off or choose an actual time beyonod the 10 min, 20 min, 2 hour, 4 hour limits.

Lazy.

Period.

1. Have you read the ANSWER and MOST HELPFUL REPLY posts on page 1?
2. Are these questions and replies actually read by Microsoft? Do they care? I have read all through this thread and have seen no replies from Microsoft (though this is their website?). ... Microsoft, please read and address your own forums.

1. Nah, because THEY AREN'T REALLY ANSWERS and they're CERTAINLY NOT HELPFUL!
2. That's the thing: Up at the top of all these pages, they title this "Microsoft Answers," but obviously that's a lie, because the company keeps on ignoring these agonized user reports about a BUG (a flaw designed into its software) that have dragged on for years and years, without so much as the courtesy of an official response.

Microsoft "Answers," indeed.

The only "answers" here are largely useless, arrogant take-it-or-leave-it lectures from so-called "MVPs" who have decided they know it all, prefer to talk down to all the stupid peons who come here seeking help, and who refuse to acknowledge that there's any problem at all. And all the while, somewhere, every single day, Windows 7 keeps right on destroying critical work on a total whim, without any user intervention, just because an autocratic, unfeeling corporation feels like doing it -- and, judging from here, is just too lazy to do anything to fix it.

Like someone here said, the whole purpose of a "security update" is to SECURE your data, not destroy it like a mindless zombie. Come to think of it, if anybody from Microsoft does happen to stumble by here, that's my branding suggestion for the next version of your mediocre and hazardous operating system: Just call it

Windows ZOMBIE.