posted on Wednesday, May 31, 2006 8:29 AM
by
jritmeijer
Disabling the annoying XP Automatic Update Nagging dialog box
It is that time of the month again where Microsoft has issued yet another 'Genuine Windows, kill all piracy' update via Windows Update. This is not a problem to me as I have a fully registered and official copy of XP Pro.
Unfortunately, whenever Windows Update downloads and installs patches it always insists on rebooting. Although I am pretty sure it is possible to patch things without requiring a reboot, I am kind of OK with it.
However, what I am definitely not OK with is the evil focus stealing dialog box that pops up every ten minutes asking me to reboot the system. I am a bloody busy man and I'll reboot whenever I want to, not when Microsoft wants me to.
I can get really worked up about the utterly moronic manner this has been implemented in, but rather than ranting and blowing my top I thought I'd sort it out once and for all.
There are multiple ways to disable this dialog. The 2 most common ones are:
-
Temporary: Stop the service that controls the 'box of evil' by issuing the command listed below. This is only temporary as after the next reboot the service will be started again, which is a good thing.
net stop wuauserv
-
Permanent: Turn off the 'nag me' function using the group policy editor by performing the steps outlined below:
Start -> Run -> gpedit.msc -> Local Computer Policy -> Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Update -> Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations.