Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Why must Windows apply updates when shuting down and starting up and can this be disabled?



Why does Windows apply updates when shutting down AND turning on? I'm working on Windows 7 and would like to know if this can be disabled. It's really bad when I need to leave and turn off my laptop to have it go through a bunch of updates. It's also annoying when I want to use a computer and don't expect to wait for updates to be installed. If Microsoft wanted to force people to install updates why can't Windows wait until the user has logged in and started working?


Answer




Some updates require that system dlls are replaced.



The way that Windows works means that these often can't be replaced while a user is logged in so the machine has to be rebooted to allow this.



You can get the update to happen while you are still using the machine, but once it's complete it will nag you to reboot. You can postpone this, but you will eventually have to do it.



As to why Windows 7 performs part of the update on shut-down and the rest on the next reboot I'm not sure - unless it's because certain files are still in use at that point or as Robert points out the update needs to access the registry which needs to be done early in the boot process to prevent hijacking.


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