# Ack!  Windows is self-medicating!

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ack-windows-is-self-medicating/450866>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 28, 2008, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ack-windows-is-self-medicating/450866 "2008-05-28T12:02:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\
**Post date:** [May 28, 2008, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ack-windows-is-self-medicating/450866/1 "2008-05-28T12:02:02Z")

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I got on my laptop again this morning to find the cheery message that Windows had applied some important updates and needed to restart itself while I was asleep. This blew out of the water a couple of Word and Excel documents I had opened and in progress. Of course, I’ll be able to recover them after going through the tedious process provided by those applications, but how do I tell Windows to let me manage updates manually and never do automatic restarts?

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**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\
**Post date:** [May 28, 2008, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ack-windows-is-self-medicating/450866/2 "2008-05-28T12:07:15Z")

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Control Panel \> Windows Update \> Change Settings \> “Download but let me choose whether to install them”.

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**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\
**Post date:** [May 28, 2008, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ack-windows-is-self-medicating/450866/3 "2008-05-28T13:28:34Z")

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[QUOTE=Szlater]  
Control Panel \> Windows Update \> Change Settings \> “Download but let me choose whether to install them”.  
[/QUOTE]  
That was the first place I looked before posting this, but my control panel does not have Windows Update. I am using XP Tablet, which is basically XP Pro with tablet support.

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**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\
**Post date:** [May 28, 2008, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ack-windows-is-self-medicating/450866/4 "2008-05-28T13:29:37Z")

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[QUOTE=CookingWithGas]  
That was the first place I looked before posting this, but my control panel does not have Windows Update. I am using XP Tablet, which is basically XP Pro with tablet support.  
[/QUOTE]  
Aha. Looked again, and on mine it’s called “Automatic Updates,” which is why I didn’t notice it before. Thanks for the advice.

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**Author:** ![Crescend](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Crescend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crescend)\
**Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ack-windows-is-self-medicating/450866/5 "2008-05-29T21:34:37Z")

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[QUOTE=CookingWithGas]  
Aha. Looked again, and on mine it’s called “Automatic Updates,” which is why I didn’t notice it before. Thanks for the advice.  
[/QUOTE]  
This will block most automatic updates, but not all of them. To shut off everything, disable the Background Intelligent Transfer Service as well as the Automatic Updates service.

Nothing like coming to work three weeks into a number-crunching run, and finding that the machine has rebooted. :mad: