We developed a theory in our office that every other version of Windows was a bit ropey:
| Windows 10 | Mostly Perfect |
| Windows 8 | Disappointing |
| Windows 7 | Perfect |
| Windows Vista | Terrible |
| Windows XP | Almost Perfect |
| Windows ME | Unspeakably Terrible |
| Windows 2000 | Solid |
| Windows 98 | Frustrating |
| Windows NT | Rock Solid |
| Windows 95 | Frustrating |
Obviously some of those were more terrible than others. Windows 10 has generally lived up to being a good version of Windows. The one issue I’ve had – repeatedly is that Windows 10 updates itself without asking me. It pops up a dialog to say that it will update itself, but if I’m having a late night hacking session and I’ve gone off to make coffee I can come back and be faced with the latest lovely picture on the login screen. It’s rather frustrating. The software I use generally has the wherewithall to autosave, but it is still extremely annoying to have to recover your work session. At the end of the day, the user should be in control of when their machine is rebooted.
It finally got too much when the computer once more decided to install the latest update and throw away everything I was working on last night. I have the home edition on this machine. I’m not sure if more professional versions allow you a little more control over updates. All I want is to be able to say – Okay, update now, once I’ve had the chance to save what I’m working on!
So after some poking around I’ve created two new registry keys
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU
And in there created a new value
DWORD AUOptions with Value 2
Now it’s just a case of rebooting the machine and waiting to see if it worked when Microsoft releases the next update.
It’s disappointing that Microsoft are happy to install patches and reboot the machine without user permission. We all understand the need to keep our computers up to date and for many people it will be fine for this to happen whenever, but programmers are control freaks where their computers are concerned and they want to be able to control every aspect of their machine.
Update
