**Start > All Programs > Windows Update
Change Settings
Important Updates > Check for updates but let me choose whether to download or install them.**
Takes about 12 seconds.
As the OP figured out. Doesn’t help when it’s set as default behavior and you don’t know about it. My Mac does stupid shit that I have to turn off, too, at times, but automatically restarting your computer by default if you’ve left it alone at the wrong time would annoy me, too. I don’t ever expect my computers to reboot unless I’ve explicitly given them permission to do so, (except perhaps during an OS installation) and I don’t think that’s an unusual expectation. Seriously, until I read through the end of this thread, I thought the OP was mistaken about something, and clicked a wrong button.
This was the default behaviour when I first got W7 too. Dickwads.
Pann, I know it’s too late now (long past 8:00 a.m.), but it’s possible at least SOME of the work has been saved. You said you were working in Word? If you haven’t altered the default settings, then Word automatically backs up what you’re working on. It’s called AutoRecover. Check your settings and see if that’s on, and see where the file would be saved. If AutoRecover is on, you may also get the option to
So long as you saved the file at least once since you created it, there may be something for you to find. Check herefor some more information on recovering lost Word files.
Good luck.
ETA: I always have AutoRecover turned off, because I find the longer the doc the slower Word gets, and because it’s possible for it to corrupt the document. But I’ve also developed the Ctrl+S tic. Even if I haven’t CHANGED anything, if it’s been sitting longer than 5 minutes my fingers twitch and do it. I don’t even have to think about it anymore.
There is absolutely a setting in both XP and Windows 7 that will never reboot your system for updates without your consent. I have multiple machines with both, and often do not want updates because of the work I’m doing (I’m a software developer, and sometimes there’s reasons I don’t want the latest versions), and I never, ever, ever have had it reboot for updates on its own. I have no doubt there are settings that do what you have described, but if it’s doing that, you need to change the update settings per mhendo’s advice.
On my W7 machine it’s:
Control Panel > System and Security > Windows Update > Change Settings
I’ve chosen not even to let it download shit without my permission, as for some reason this often hogs my processor, as well as my connection speed.
Wouldn’t Windows prompt you about saving the open document before closing the application and rebooting?
Same thing. It gets you to the same place, just by a slightly different route.
And i’m the same: no downloads or updates without my explicit permission. The main reason for this is that it almost always wants to do them just after i turn my computer on in the morning. I don’t want to boot up in the morning, and then have to reboot again almost immediately, just for some updates. I usually run the updates just before i switch off for the night.
I would have assumed so, but turning off automatic updates is usually the first thing i do on a new computer, so i haven’t seen what the actual behavior is in Windows 7.
That’s only true if you blindly click “Next” when going through the initial setup. One of the setup screens explicitly asks if you want to turn on automatic updates.
Windows XP Screenshot
I always pick “Ask me later” or “Not Now” as the case may be, then go in and change the settings at my leisure.
Thing is, even if I clicked through that, I would just assume the computer automatically checks for updates, and then throw up a prompt saying “Yo, dude, found some patches for your crapware. Wanna install them?” Or, at the very most, download them behind the scenes, and then give me a prompt saying something to the effect of my updates being automatically downloaded and they will either install upon your next reboot or right now, if you click here. I just don’t expect my computer to automatically reboot itself because I left it alone for 15 minutes.
On my version of W7 I don’t have the option that you mentioned.
And I agree with pulykamell - “Automatic updates” does not, to the first-time user, indicate “I will restart your computer, force-quit all your apps and dump all open files without saving them, if you fail to respond to a nag prompt within an arbitrarily allotted time”.
Yes, I was quite surprised the first time the computer rebooted without my permission. Why would you assume that enabling “automatic updates” means “allow reboots without permission”? I mean, obviously I shut that setting off after the first time it happened, but still, there’s no reason for that to be the default. I am going to go out on a limb and say that the vast majority of users do not, in fact, want their computer to reboot without permission, ever.
Microsoft knows best.
Stuff like this is part of why techies, engineers, etc., actually like Windows. It’s electronic Darwinism.
What does this mean? That the only people left using Windows at some undefined future point will be people who enjoy the experience of having to outsmart their own operating system in order to keep it from closing all of their apps without warning? “Survival of the masochists”?
And those are the same user whose computers never get updated, then scream when their machine crashes because of the latest malware that takes advantage of a hole that had been fixed by updating. “But it should’ve done it automatically.” It does, but this is part of it.
Yes. You are correct. This is the behavior we are discussing. And my point, which has not changed, is that it is ridiculous for this to be the default. Start having a nag screen pop up every 20 minutes for critical updates if you must, but don’t just reboot the damn computer without asking. This is not a revolutionary concept.
I’ve often said that Windows isn’t a terrible OS. It’s a mediocre OS with terrible default settings. Learning what those are and how to change them is a good investment of time.
Techies, engineers, etc.? They hate Windows with fiery passion.
While the point about default settings has considerable merit, the bolded part is not simply a debatable opinion, it is literally and factually incorrect, and demonstrates either complete unfamiliarity or willful blindness, especially with regard to Windows 7.