HOW TO GET WINDOWS TO STOP NAGGING YOU

We're going to talk today about getting rid of an annoyance with Windows Updates.

Every user should have it turned to Automatic.  But whether it is automatic or not, almost all the time after the update, your computer must be rebooted for the updates to take effect.

The annoyance is that if you click no to the message box that asks you if you want to reboot now, the message box pops up every several minutes and asks the same fool question. 

Worse, if you leave the room for several minutes when the message box pops up, it'll reboot automatically – losing whatever websites you were on or data you hadn't saved.

This was really annoying me, and probably many of you.  After Jack sent me an email asking me how to prevent it, I finally decided to find out how to get rid of it.

The very first column I wrote in February 2004 discussed how to use Microsoft's Windows XP forums to get answers to your questions about problems with your operating system.

Yet until Jack sent me the email, I let the annoyance fester for years before taking my own advice. I should probably pay more attention to Joel Wade's column!  When I submitted the question I got an answer in less than half an hour.

The answer is a little geeky so I'll take you through it step by step.  It doesn't stop automatic updates but it does stop the nagging and let's you reboot when you want.

Click Start in the bottom left hand corner, then click Run.

Then type in "gpedit.msc" and then click OK or press Enter

You'll get the following window:

It's possible your screen won't look exactly like this.  What is important is that you select Local Computer Policy, expand Computer Configuration, then Administrative Temples, Windows Components, then select Windows Updates.

Afterwards, you'll get a list of choices.  Select the second to the last choice:

The selection is by default not configured like the rest.  But I configured it before taking the screen shot.  Right click it and choose properties

1440 minutes is the maximum you can select before getting the reprompt message.  That's 24 hours, which ought to be enough.  There's no method of disabling the message altogether.  But it does stop the nagging.

Dennis Turner