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jeepless -> WinXP AUTO reboot after updates?!?! (12/16/2004 8:52:29)
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I ran into something new I hadn't seen before... it's another one of Microsoft's BAD IDEAS! I'm running Windows XP with SP2 and auto-updates enabled.
I was completing a very large video project that was going to take my PC over three hours to complete (render, assemble, then build the final video file). About an hour into this process Windows popped up a dialog box stating that critical updates had been installed on my computer and I must restart the computer before they would take effect. Then in the same dialog box Windows started a countdown timer and gave me 5 minutes to either hit the "Restart Now" button or the "Cancel" button to stop the auto-reboot. Restart was the default setting if you didn't do anything. Good thing I was looking at the computer screen when it popped up! So I hit the "Cancel" button and continued to watch the screen. Five minutes later the same dialog box reapppeared and kept reappearing every 5 minutes thereafter until I rebooted. For the next two hours I had to sit in front of the screen twiddling my thumbs so I could keep hitting the "Cancel" button until my video project was finished! Aaarrrggghhh!!!
The next day my daughter called and said she had been working on a document and left her PC for a few minutes to answer the phone. When she got back, she found that her computer had rebooted on its own and her document was lost (didn't save it before answering the phone). She was a victim of this same "auto-reboot" feature and 30 minutes worth of work was gone!!!
Now I can see where this auto-reboot would be helpful in some situations, especially for a PC left running idle for a long period of time. But I have not been able to find a way to disable this auto-reboot and its countdown timer! I often run long processes on my PC and hate the thought that I will now have to "baby-sit" my computer to stop these auto-reboots should they happen again.
Anyone else run into this "feature" and find a way to disable it (other than turning-off the auto-updates)???
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