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Damn you Automatic Updates!

November 19, 2006 at 10:45 pm · Filed under Cool, Rants

So I left my laptop on last night downloading some files off FileShack and went to it this morning to find it sat there at Windows login. I logged in and the oh so helpful Automatic Updates green shield was happily sat there in the system tray proclaiming it had just successfully installed various updates.

Great! I don’t remember turning Automatic Updates on, but I must have. I usually get it to notify me of updates and then download them myself via Windows Update because Automatic Updates gives this annoying dialog…

AutoUpdateDialog

…which must have appeared whilst I was snoozing. If you click Restart Later and then leave your computer alone, it’ll automagically reboot itself. Very annoying.

Now you can just turn the service off but the blasted Security Center complains about it. However I found out you can tweak the dialog / auto reboot settings:

Click Start / Run
Type gpedit.msc
In Group Policy Editor navigate to:

Local Computer Policy
Computer Configuration
Administrative Templates
Windows Components
Windows Update

Now either tweak one of the following:

Disable No auto-restart for schedule Automatic Updates installations
Enable and set a big interval on Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations

Yay! No more stupid automatic reboots!

Info / screenshot from Coding Horror and The PC Doctor.

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Phil Hackett said,

December 5, 2006 @ 10:41 am

Thanks Paul – that’s been bugging me for a while too. A top tip there….

Paul said,

December 5, 2006 @ 11:21 am

Well I never, it’s the lesser spotted Mr. Hackett. How goes it sir? I see from your blog you’re still coding away?

I’m still at DHP but we’ve moved offices from sunny Nelson to sunny Skipton. The view is certainly much nicer. We’ve now got mad squirrels jumping from the tree tops instead of pigeons fighting on the corrugated mill building roofs.

Phil Hackett said,

December 5, 2006 @ 12:06 pm

Yay! I did wonder if you’d think “Who the heck….?”!

Yeah, all is good, thanks. I’m a one-man coding team! This year I dragged my firm kicking and screaming into the world of .NET (Chrome) – fun, fun, fun! And bought a house (at an extortionate southern-style price).

Found your blog the other month, and have been sneakily keeping tabs on you! You HAVE been busy. Getting married, trying to kill yourself on the roads…!

Have also popped over to visit the DHP web-site occassionally (not quite as interesting, mind!). I gather you’re not really called DHP any more. In fact, I get the distinct impression, that you’ve somehow lost Mr Horner. Tell me Mr Root hasn’t escaped as well? Surely not? Skipton’s got to be much nicer though. Smashing stuff.

Classic DHP unicycle action:
http://snipurl.com/148c6

Paul said,

December 5, 2006 @ 12:56 pm

How could I forget the famous Phil, we’re still using Compf everyday (and TExcelArray)! Danny and I have occasionally been popping by Planet of the Chickens to see what mad capped antics you were up to.

Glad to hear all is well. I hear the mushy peas down South aren’t as good as up North? I couldn’t move because of that.

We’re also heading towards .NET too, using Delphi 2006. Sounds like you’re still doing Delphi (or C#?) if you’re using Chrome. What kind of stuff you writing now?

Technically we are still DHP, but trade under Optima Energy Management (gaaah I’ve given away the name of who I work for). It’s more a branding / marketing thing since the name DHP didn’t really relate to the software.

Mr. Horner has indeed left, about 5 years ago I think. Mr. Root and Mr. Wright are still here and we’re slowly collecting more staff.

I actually have copy of those pics, but more because of the Mick photoshopped goodness than anything. That and the wife says my spoon piccy pretty much sums me up!

Oh btw, the aardvarks say Hi…

Phil Hackett said,

December 5, 2006 @ 2:12 pm

Aw, fanks Mr Healey (that’s your full name, your place of work and a photograph of you with a spoon – you’re ripe for identity theft now I should think!). Wow, and my (possibly slightly worrying) legacy lives on (Have you seen Beyond Compare? Might be better than Compf, not sure). That Mr Root, though – where’s his web presence? “Danny & Rosie At Home” seems to have come to a stand-still, and none of you seem to feature on MySpace. Thank goodness for Danny’s “Aging grumpy squirrel with paunch about to spill his Theakston” picture.

Low quality mushy peas down south? That’s just the begining. For starts, the only funny people down here come from the North! The sunshine’s nice, but let’s just say, I wouldn’t have to be dragged kicking an screaming if the beautiful North were to come back on the cards again!

Well, six months in and I quite like .NET so far. Fingers crossed it works well for you using Delphi as well. I was using Delphi here up until mid-2006, but I pushed them to let me move to Visual Studio and Chrome (was little bit concerned about the future of Delphi to be honest!). Works quite well, but Chrome has a few rough edges. I might try doing some stuff in C# later and see how I get on.

I write small desktop applications here. No database work at all, but quite a lot of pretty graphics. It’s kind of fun, but as there’s only one of me, there are limits to how adventurous my projects can be. (I’m the evil non-genius behind these babies:
snipurl.com/148id snipurl.com/148hp snipurl.com/148hr
snipurl.com/148hv snipurl.com/148i3 snipurl.com/148i8)

No Mr Horner? Has the “DH” part of “DHP” been assigned a new and sophisticated meaning then? Hard to imagine a DHP without Mr Dave. Is he an olympic gymnast or Bill Oddie’s back shaver, now then?

Oh, and could you kick the aardvarks in the face from me? Thanks Paul!

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Damn you Automatic Updates!

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