Stop auto reboot of Windows 7 after update

My wife’s laptop is running Windows 7, and has the problem that it forces a reboot unless you tell it not to every ten minutes. It’s not the professional edition, so I can’t use gpedit. Looking around the web, there are many solutions like this page, telling me to add an entry to the pre-existing registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU
That key does not exist. What does exist is
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows
with no “WindowsUpdate” under it. Can I add that, then add AU, then follow the rest of the instructions? Is it in a new place now or named differently?

I’m not interested in “Get a new OS”, “Get a Mac”, and “Oh, you shouldn’t change it” or other similar unhelpful comments.

In my experience, if a set of instructions involves adding an entry to a key, and you find the key doesn’t exist, then creating the key yourself would work.

What version of Windows IS it? One of the two that I own is Home Premium, and it doesn’t auto-reboot. So I think I have a setting somewhere that tells it not to. I have mine set to download automatically, but only install on my say-so. And when it is installed I don’t think it bugs me every ten minutes. I think it asks me once, and then doesn’t ask again if I say now (but leaves the little icon in the corner as a reminder that a reboot is required to finish updating)

You should be able to tell it to not bother you for 4 hours. It’s a drop-down which defaults to 10 mins.

Change your windows update settings to “Let me choose when to install items.” You have it set to choose at a certain time, install, and reboot.

If you would like to retain your setting but just stop the reboot then its easier than changing the reg key:

type gpedit.msc into your search box in start

Navigate to Computer Config - admin - windows components - windows updates

and change the No Auto-restart setting

Screenhot here:

OP…

I’ve confirmed it with my home premium version of W7

Whoops missed that. Can you run mmc.exe and add the group policy editor snap-in?

Thanks all. I added the keys, and then added NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers with a value of 1. It’ll be a while before I know if it worked.

If it works like XP Home did, gpedit cannot be started no matter how you try to do it (other than upgrading to Pro, whether officially or by hack)