Disable Automatic Restarts in Windows 10 Home Anniversary Update

Question

I have a Windows 10 Home PC that is often unattended but doing important work. The work follows no particular schedule, and may take place at any time of day or night.

As things stand, Windows 10 (anniversary update) is configured to automatically restart and install updates during inactive times. The user can configure the inactive times, but the OS forces the user to have no more than 12 active hours a day. This means that the machine may well choose to restart at a time that is highly disruptive to our work and when there is no user around to prevent the restart.

For this reason, I would like to ensure that Windows never automatically restarts. How can I achieve this?

Solution

Here are the instructions to disable auto restarts for windows 10 Pro and Home editions. If you have a different version (education, enterprise) the process is different - update your question to that effect and I'll add that info.

There are two methods provided. The first is Pro only. Win 10 home doesn't have the group policy editor so it has to be configured via the registry. This registry method will work for both Pro and Home.

I confirmed that this works on the Anniversary update version (win 10 pro). There is one caveat - a user must be logged in for this approach to work.

Win 10 Pro:

1. Press win+R then type gpedit.msc and press enter
2. This will open the group policy editor. Browse through the 'tree' to the following entry: Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update.
3. Look on the right panel and search for the option named No auto-restart with logged on users for scheduled automatic updates installations.
4. Double-click on it, then change the radio button in the popup window that will appear from not configured to enabled and click OK.
5. To make the system immediately apply the changes you just made, press WIN + R again and issue the gpupdate /force command

Win 10 Pro (alternative method) and Home:

1. Press win+R; type regedit and press enter.
2. Browse to the following registry entry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU
3. If you do not have a WindowsUpdate and/or AU entry, you need to create them. Follow the 'source' link below for add'l info on how to do this.
4. Inside the AU key, create a new 32-bit DWORD called NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers, then double-click on it and set its hex value to 1.
5. You'll have to reboot for the change to be applied.

Another alternative - home or pro

If for whatever reason the approach above doesn't work, you can get around automatic reboots by changing your windows update settings so that you only download updates automatically and it requests approval before installing them. Once you approve installation you are at the mercy of when Windows reboots, but you have the ability to otherwise indefinitely delay it.

To change this setting:

1. Press win+R; type regedit and press enter.
2. Browse to the following registry entry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update
3. Change the value of that key to a '3' (which configures windows update to download updates automatically but require user confirmation before installing them).

source

Comments

[Admin]

The only way to achieve this is to use WSUS

[Admin]

You can also use superuser.com/questions/947706/… instead

[Admin]

@Ramhound One (admittedly minor) difference with the linked question is that I use the home edition of windows. This means that group police editor, etc. are not available to me.

[Admin]

At: superuser.com/a/1125051/115576 there seems to be a version which works for me...

[Ubiquitous]

Thanks, I am going to try this. In this question (superuser.com/questions/1112186/…) @SMackJack says that the group policy edit stopped working under the anniversary update, so I'll be curious to see if it works for me.

[Argonauts]

I saw conflicting information on it. The setting is still present. If it doesn't work the 3rd option will work. If you are running an insider build all bets are off, however

[Andreas Reiff]

Thanks for this. Hope the options still are working. Win 10 Pro just restarted in the middle of watching a movie and updated for 30 mins, I could not change the time, and now I got even less options in Windows Update. Activity window of only up to 12 hours possible to prevent updates during that time?

[Ramhound]

You should edit this answer after you have verified it is an actual answer. Review

[Ramhound]

I went ahead and flagged this question as a duplicate, because of this answer, as a duplicate to this question: How to prevent Windows 10 from restarting the computer after installing updates identical answers to multiple questions isn't a good thing. If you find yourself submitting the same answer multiple times, stop yourself, because your answer will show up in the review queue.

[Ravindra Bawane]

The newer editions of Win10 currently in the Insider Rings have expanded the flexibility of active times fixing this issue permanently. Full release of these features will probably be in the "Creators Update" scheduled for next year.

[Dr. Gianluigi Zane Zanettini]

Please note that NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers is not sufficient. See superuser.com/a/1192401/129204

[Aldor]

I am currently on Windows 10 version 1709, and have all those same values in my registry (I must have run this script before). Still, windows restarted for an update last night.