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On every second Tuesday of the month, Microsoft indulges us with a slew updates ranging from trivial to critical and sometimes even truly superior. Sadly, not even the most ardor imbued zealot of Windows rejuvenation can bring the updates to life without a reboot. To ensure everyone do reboot, Microsoft has added the lovely “Restart Now” dialog we have all come to cherish.

Distressing as it may be, while loved and cherished, the dialog is often the center of attention in the Windows loath-fest. Getting rid of it, however, isn’t that difficult. All it takes is killing one service.

net stop wuauserv

But what if yours truly is not near the computer on patch Tuesday and the dialog starts its cheerful countdown to complete and total annihilation of the current session? While skimming through some Group Policies, I’ve noticed there’s one for disabling this annoying reboot countdown. Simply create a DWORD named NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers under HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU, set it to 1 and say bah-bye to Microsoft’s equivalent of the dreaded ad pop-up.

Microsoft’s Tim Rains has more details on the subject.