There are two scenarios where Windows users or admins may want to block updates from being displayed. The first is to block an update’s deployment in a small to middle sized business or organization, the second if an update is either not needed, or known to cause problems in a single computer environment.

We for instance installed the Windows 7 Professional SP1 Beta on our test system a while ago, but decided to remove it after a while. Windows however kept nagging at every system startup that an update was available. Even worse, the update was always automatically selected in Windows Update, next to the other security patches and releases that we wanted to install.

That meant that we had to manually find and uncheck the update to prevent its installation in Windows 7. We first thought it would be enough to uncheck the update once in Windows Update to prevent its installation, but it got reselected automatically whenever Windows Update was started anew.

windows update

Windows Update does have a mechanism to block specific updates. The answer is revealed after right-clicking an update that should not be installed on the system, and that the user does not want to receive notifications about.

A right-click, and the selection of Hide Update, unchecks the update in the updating software, and changes the color of the update’s name to a lighter gray.

The effect can be tested immediately by closing and opening Windows Update again. The frontpage, which lists all available updates for the operating system is no longer listing the blocked update.

Windows Update offers an option to restore hidden updates at anytime. The Restore Hidden Updates link in the left sidebar of the main Windows Update window opens a page listing all updates that haven been blocked on the system.

restore hidden updates

Selecting an update and clicking the Restore button at the bottom of the screen will add it to the update cycle again, so that the update can be installed and deployed.

block windows updates

This method of hiding updates in Windows Update is obviously only practical for single computers or small computer networks. Admins have other tools at their disposable to control the updates that are installed on the client machines that they manage.

Have another tip regarding Windows Update? Let us know in the comments.

Windows update will prompt to restart the computer so that the updates can be applied. The Internet is full of users who complain about this feature as it has interrupted work or other computer activities with some stating that they lost work because of the reboot.

windows update

Some operating systems might provide an option to postpone the restart by 10 minutes, 1 hour or 4 hours. This can be repeated if the prompt reappears.

Three options are available to turn off the automatic restart of the PC after new Windows updates have been downloaded to the computer system. Please note that turning of Automatic Updates is not recommended and therefor not an option that we will discuss here.

Option 1: Stopping the Windows Update Service

This is a temporary solution. It will stop the service that is responsible for downloading and installing updates in Windows. Stopping the service will stop the automatic restart prompt in that session. The command has to be issued at the command line or by stopping the service in the services configuration menu.

To open the command open the Start Menu, click on All Programs, locate Accessories, right-click the command prompt entry and select to run it as an administrator. Please note that the path to the command prompt entry might differ depending on the Windows version installed.

Now enter the command net stop wuauserv and hit enter. A message should be displayed that states that the Windows Update Service was stopped successfully.

stop windows update service

It is also possible to issue the command shutdown -a to prevent a shutdown if the shutdown window is already displayed (windows will shut down in ..).

Option 2: Using Group Policies

Group Policies are not available in all editions of Microsoft Windows. It is usually the Home and Basic editions that do not offer this.

Windows XP: Available only in Windows XP Professional
Windows Vista: Available in Windows Vista Business and Ultimate / Enterprise
Windows 7: Available in Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate

The Group Policy Editor can be started by clicking on start and typing in gpedit.msc in the run box. Windows XP users need to select Run first and enter the filename afterwards.

Use the left sidebar to navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update.

no auto-restart automatic updates

Locate the No auto-restart with logged on users for scheduled automatic updates installations. Right-click the entry and select Edit from the menu. This opens a new window. Select Enable to activate the option.

Specifies that to complete a scheduled installation, Automatic Updates will wait for the computer to be restarted by any user who is logged on, instead of causing the computer to restart automatically.

If the status is set to Enabled, Automatic Updates will not restart a computer automatically during a scheduled installation if a user is logged in to the computer. Instead, Automatic Updates will notify the user to restart the computer.

Setting this to enabled will prevent the automatic restart of the PC for as long as the user is logged into the system.

disable restart after windows update

Please note that this entry might be different depending on the Windows version. The above is valid for Windows 7 Professional.

Option 3: Configuring the Windows Registry

The last option to change the Windows Update behavior permanently is located in the Windows Registry. Open the Windows Registry by clicking the start button and typing in regedit in the run form. This opens the Registry Editor.

Locate the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU. If it does not exist create it.

Create a New Dword (32-bit) and name it NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers. Set the value to 1 to turn the feature on. Please note that this will change the automatic restart window to display an option to postpone the restart. This feature is already enabled in Windows 7 which is why Windows 7 users do not need it. Windows XP users on the other hand get an option to postpone the updates.

Bonus: Software for the lazy

Several programs have been created to automate some of the processes above. The freeware Turn Off Windows Update Restart Nag for instance turns of the Windows Update service when it is executed. Another software is Automatic Reboot Remover (officially only working on Windows XP)

How to do you handle automatic restarts after updates in Windows?

The second issue that the Internet Recovery Kit addresses is broken SSL support which usually comes in the form of not being able to connect to HTTPS websites properly. This too can be problematic as many financial websites and shopping websites use https for improved security.

Rizone’s Internet Recovery Kit can be used to fix both issues that have been described in the last two paragraphs. All the user needs to do is to press the right button in the software program to initiate the fix. While there is no guarantee that the program can fix the problem the chance is good that it can.

Users who want to repair Windows Update and Automatic Updates on their computer system can press the Repair WU/AU button to do so. The program will display the progress in the log at the bottom of the interface. The log can also be used to analyse what has been done to fix the problem. The Repair SSL / HTTPS button on the other hand will initiate the repair of these components in the Windows operating system.

Rizone’s Internet Recovery Kit is compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. It is a fine addition for every computer repair toolkit thanks to its portable nature, ease of use and success rate.

The distribution will be started in the third week of April for users running Internet Explorer 6 or Internet Explorer 7 on the Microsoft operating systems Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008. The update will be a high priority update for Windows XP and Server 2003 while it will be rated important on Vista and Server 2008.

The rollout will commence gradually with no time frame given at this time. This does not mean however that Internet Explorer 8 will be installed on the computer system right away. Microsoft is giving users the choice to perform the installation, to delay or avoid it.

The majority of users will most likely perform the install of Internet Explorer 8 which is beneficial not only for them and the security of their computer system but also for web developers who usually dislike the older Internet Explorer editions.

Users, system administrator or companies who want to opt out can still install the Internet Explorer 8 Blocker tool. New Internet Explorer users might be interested in Internet Explorer 8 ad blocking.

I started services.msc and set all three services to manual to be able to start them afterwards. I refreshed the Windows Update website but received the same error message that one or more of the services were not running. I double checked and all three were running.

After reading the error description more carefully I discovered that it was not sufficient to just have the service running. No, it was necessary that two of the services, Automatic Updates and Background Intelligent Transfer Service, had to be set to automatic.

Once I did that the error message went away and I was able to update Windows XP using Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1. Yes, that did work which is why I’m writing this article instead. If you run into troubles with services and Windows Updates make sure the two services I mentioned are set to Automatic.

Both do not give the user a choice to reboot the computer when he wants to do it. XP nags him every ten minutes if he chooses reboot later while Vista has a maximum of four hours before the user is asked again. I’m not sure why Microsoft decided to not give the user the chance to reboot the computer when he wants to in this situation but it is surely annoying as hell.

There is hope, however. If you have access to Group Policy in XP you can go to Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update and enable the option “No auto-restart for schedule Automatic Updates installations“.

I was not able to verify if this option is available in Windows Vista as well. If it is you could simply turn it on there as well and reboot the system whenever you like after downloading the patches. If someone running Windows Vista could verify this it would be really helpful.

Another option would be to simply stop the automatic update service in the current session. This would mean that the nagging screens asking you to reboot would not appear in this session only. Automatic Updates will be started automatically as a service again after a reboot.

To stop the Automatic Updating Service type net stop "automatic updates" in the command line.

Many users that use Firefox or Opera do not care about the new Internet Explorer 7 – which means they probably want to get rid of this message altogether. Blocking windows update from automatic updating to IE7 can be done by changing one registry key in the registry. All you need to do is create a new registry file and import it to the registry

Create a new textfile, paste the following lines of code into it and save it with the extension .reg

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Setup\7.0]
"DoNotAllowIE70"=dword:00000001

This creates a new registry key that blocks the automatic update to IE7, you will not see the annoying windows that popups again. Simply change the registry key from 1 to 0 if you want to see the window again to update to the new IE7.