So there I am, asleep in bed, well sort of. I wasn't sleeping very well that night to begin with but to get to my story. Here comes 3am and what do I hear that breaks the silence of the early morning? Well, its my fancy little "Exiting Windows" wav file. "Hmm" I think. That's odd, because I'm not at my computer and surely nothing on this planet would just make my computer just shut down. So like a good nerd, I have to get up and see what the heck is going on. My system comes back up and to my amazement, I see a nice little balloon message pop up from Microsoft...."You computer was recently AUTOMATICALLY RESTARTED because of a critical update."
OK... I will let that soak in for a second.........
Ok, You got that? AUTOMATICALLY RESTARTED!!!!
Let's look at a simple equation. Microsoft or another technology firm, finds a flaw in windows that may lead to the ability to allow a person to compromise the weakness and damage your data. Sounds simple enough right? Now, the problem is so high on the list of windows problems that someone decides this needs to be applied IMMEDIATELY!!. Good enough, sounds like good ole' MS is looking out for us.
But, here is my point. MS comes out with a patch to fix a problem so that users WILL NOT lose their valuable data, by rebooting automatically and possibly leading to the loss of DATA!?!?!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Anyone else following me on this?
Here is what happens in Microsoft Speak. "As it turns out, the reboot is actually expected behavior. You have Automatic Updates on your system configured to Automatically download recommended updates for my computer and install them” on a schedule. When one or more of those updates requires a reboot, the system gets rebooted."
So it's my fault? Oh i feel better. Thanks. Enngg! Wrong.
If any of you remember a virus back about four or so years ago, (can't remember the exact name but I think it was "Sircam") This viruexploiteded a critical flaw in NT based OS's (XP is NT based) that caused the system to rebooinexplicablyly when thpersonne logged on to their internet service provider. This virus maker cause "millions" of dollars of damage. They were caught, sent to prison and so forth.
Microsoft has made the exact bi-product with this Auto update feature. NowI'm'm not likening MS to a criminal, although there are times I want to. BUT, this problem needs to be addressed at the highest level. This really is an inconvenience for the user and sometimes worse. Perhaps you were working on a term paper at night, went to bed without saving, it happens to everybody sometimes, we forget to save. But thats ok until BAM! MS restarts your computer!
Nope! that's not what I want.
So here are the options........
1) Turn off Automatic Updates.
- Well, some people have no problewithth doing this, but with the amount of time that it takes for someone to use MS bulletin and use it maliciously, I wouldn't recommendnd it. Yodon'tnt always remember to run the manual updates. So I would leave this on.
2)Wait for a fix?
- In speaking to MS employeeee at a recent MS event, I don't think there is one coming soon. Unless someone REALLY has a fit. It will come to a head, but MS is too busy with their regular biz.
3)Hacked registry fix.
EUREKAKA! There we go That's what we need. Let's just turn it off! It turns out there is a registry entry that gets rid of this annoyance and will allow you to save your data and reboot on your own. Don't you feel better now? I know I do! :)
Here is the link, save to your desktop, double click and say "yes" to add it to the registry.
"Turn off auto reboot" fix
Happy Computing! and Pass this info on!
Nick H
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