If you have your Windows PC on “automatic updates” (and you really should…one of Microsoft’s not-so-brilliant moves was to alert you to the updates by a little dialog that lets you “restart now” or “restart later”.
The default is “restart now” — so, if you accidentally — hit “enter”, or think that the keyboard equivalent for “n” (for no) will save you — guess again. But there’s hope if that should happen to you! Keep reading!
The other choice is “restart later”. The only problem is, if you select this option, the dialog will pop up shortly later.
Years ago, when I did software quality assurance, we classified bugs by the problems they caused.
The worst bugs were those that could go out and destroy other data.
But that type of problem is fairly rare, unless done with evil intent.
Next to that — and far more common – the worst kind of bug is one that destroys data. Especially if if destroys *user* data.
And that is exactly what this facility does.
You have a few choices…
1/ don’t select automatic updates … bad idea
2/
http://www.xiven.com/weblog/2004/05/01/WeHaveWaysOfMakingYouRestartYourComputer
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000294.html
So here are my attempts to fix this …
cmd> sc stop wuauservSERVICE_NAME: wuauserv
TYPE : 20 WIN32_SHARE_PROCESS
STATE : 3 STOP_PENDING
(NOT_STOPPABLE,NOT_PAUSABLE,IGNORES_SHUTDOWN)
WIN32_EXIT_CODE : 0 (0x0)
SERVICE_EXIT_CODE : 0 (0x0)
CHECKPOINT : 0x1
WAIT_HINT : 0x7530cmd> gpedit.msc
'gpedit.msc' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
So, I guess you need to have Windows XP Pro and I have home edition in order to run the last program. Hopefully I’m safe — and you can refer to the above links for more information.
Hope this helps!