Select the highlighted option to disable automatic restart.

Ever had this happen? You leave your PC on overnight and Windows Update runs. After it’s finished, it needs to restart your PC, and closes all your open documents in the process, causing you to lose your work.

Or how about this? You get a popup that Windows has updated and needs to restart in five minutes, and you accidentally let the time run out. Suddenly all your apps close without even time to save your files.

If only there was a way to disable automatic restart. There is? Excellent!

To disable automatic restart after an update in Windows 7 Ultimate (this fast tip does not work in Windows 7 Home Premium, unfortunately):

• Click Start
• Type gpedit.msc in the box and press Enter to open the Group Policy Editor
• Click Computer Configuration
• Click Administrative Templates
• Click Windows Components
• Click Windows Update
• Select No Auto-Restart with Logged On Users for Scheduled AUtomatic Updates Installation

Save and quit, and now Windows will continue to install important updates at the scheduled time, but will no longer force a restart. Note that it still notifies you that you need to restart to finish updating, and you’re going to want to do so after saving your work, but now control is turned back over to you.