Disable Windows 10 automatic restart after updates

I had the one policy setting for a good number of years.  It no longer seems to work.   My 1909 system restarted last night.. but there are other registry/policy settings related to win updates that might still work... I'm holding off on disabling windows update service and the musnotification setting for now...   

"AUOptions" set to "2" might do it... I'm going with that for now... under:

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU

UPDATE FEB 29: This setting (AUOptions) works fine for me.  I am simply notified when updates are available.  All I have to do is wait until I am ready to download and apply the updates and reboot my system.  If I don't download the updates, no automated reboot will occur. You simply don't download the updates until  you are ready.

Very simple, PERMANENT solution in a few basic steps:

1. Create a new text file, located wherever you want, preferably hidden somewhere in the system so you don't accidently delete the file; my preference is placing it in the windows update orchestrator folder (the piece of cancerware responsible for this idiotic design flaw); this folder is located at C:\Windows\System32\Tasks\Microsoft\Windows\UpdateOrchestrator
2. It is unnecessary to put anything in the text file; name it whatever you want, but change the file extension from .txt to .bat
3. Open up the start menu, type in "task scheduler" and open it
4. Open the left-most viewing pane, click the drop-down icon next to "Task Scheduler Library", then "Microsoft", then "Windows", and finally scroll down near the bottom and select "UpdateOrchestrator"
5. In the top-middle pane, select the "Reboot" task and right click it, then select "Disable"
6. Right-click on the "reboot" task again, go to the "Triggers" tab, select any triggers there and delete them
7. The final, and most important step (this is the process that keeps re-enabling automatic restarts), go to the "Actions" tab, EDIT the "start a program" action, and change the default file to the text document/.bat file you created in step 1-2

That's it! So long as that file exists on your computer, it will prevent Windows Update Orchestrator from checking/initializing the "Reboot" file, the process responsible for taking your computer hostage......

Can't disable Reboot. Even in administrator account. Says I don't have the correct permissions.

Very simple, PERMANENT solution in a few basic steps:

1. Create a new text file, located wherever you want, preferably hidden somewhere in the system so you don't accidently delete the file; my preference is placing it in the windows update orchestrator folder (the piece of cancerware responsible for this idiotic design flaw); this folder is located at C:\Windows\System32\Tasks\Microsoft\Windows\UpdateOrchestrator
2. It is unnecessary to put anything in the text file; name it whatever you want, but change the file extension from .txt to .bat
3. Open up the start menu, type in "task scheduler" and open it
4. Open the left-most viewing pane, click the drop-down icon next to "Task Scheduler Library", then "Microsoft", then "Windows", and finally scroll down near the bottom and select "UpdateOrchestrator"
5. In the top-middle pane, select the "Reboot" task and right click it, then select "Disable"
6. Right-click on the "reboot" task again, go to the "Triggers" tab, select any triggers there and delete them
7. The final, and most important step (this is the process that keeps re-enabling automatic restarts), go to the "Actions" tab, EDIT the "start a program" action, and change the default file to the text document/.bat file you created in step 1-2

That's it! So long as that file exists on your computer, it will prevent Windows Update Orchestrator from checking/initializing the "Reboot" file, the process responsible for taking your computer hostage......

Can't disable Reboot. Even in administrator account. Says I don't have the correct permissions.

In order to properly invoke task scheduler, use PSTools, as described in this: https://windowsreport.com/user-account-permission-disable-task/

I feel you man, I hate microsoft for this stupid feature.

they dont have it on windows 2012 server.

What I have most is that microsoft refuse to listen to customer needs.

I dont mind if the auto reboot feature is enabled by default but there should a way to disable, even if this means to get nagged all the time to reboot windows.

But Microsoft, like Apple have a track record of believing they know better.

I praise all the people who try to help, although I see that the workarounds are often very difficult to implement or even to understand.

My computer is a home server, it is on 24/24 and my family use to watch movies and stuffs on Plex.

I also have Virtual machines that my sons use for developments.

when the machine is rebooted it creates lot of havocks, a lot of lost work, like all the movies I encode in a queue that takes several days. One time, I lost a VM for good that got corrupted because VMware was killed by the automatic reboot.

My personal workaround is to pause the update for 7 days. thats a button you can push on the windows update page.

when someone connect to the machine with remote desktop or teamviewer, they have to manually check for update, install them and restart the machine *when neeed* in a graceful manner.

I disable the updates on my machines (Windows 10 Home) by doing the following:

Run > services.msc

Find Windows update and double click

In the General Tab > Stop the service

Also in General Tab > Startup Type > Set to Disabled

In the Recovery Tab > First Failure > Set to Take no action

We have a client that runs windows devices on screens like a kiosk 24/7. For support, we VNC in remotely. You can imagine my frustration when one time Windows automatically updated itself, restarted and disabled the wi-fi driver...no more remote access to 5 screens.

I've found the above works well for us. If we ever need to update Windows, just reverse the above, run the updates manually, and then disable again when done.