How to control Windows auto-update on Shutdown?

[benali72]

Ok, you Windows gurus! I need your help.

For an old XP SP3 system, I have Automatic Updates set to "Download updates for me, but let me choose when to install them."

Its little update shield icon appears in the systray when it has downloaded updates and is ready for me to apply them.

But under certain conditions (like apparently if you ignore the little update shield icon for too long), Windows decides to "help" you apply the updates when it thinks you should. Specifically, when you try to shutdown, the shutdown icon has the little emblem showing that Windows will autumatically apply the updates for you when you shutdown.

But I don't want that! I want to use CUSTOM settings for the updates, which Windows denies to me when I'm forced to apply its updates on shutdown.

How can I regain control of updates -- CUSTOM -- after Windows has decided to force me to apply them all automatically during shutdown?

Thank you.

[DarkHumour]

MMC, add snap in, group policy, local group policy, administrative templates, windows components, windows updates,

first item on the list.

[Richardk]

How do you stay on top of all that? In general I've avoided making changes to group policies and similar areas but it seems that sometimes that's your only option. And with every version of Windows, it's often all different.

[Walter Mitty]

My guess is that no one person is on top of all of it.  There is just too much that's being invented or revised every day to stay on top of it all. 

In decades gone by, I could be an operating system expert, a programming languages expert, a database expert, etc.  No more.  There's a tiny subset of the stuff that I learn, and the rest of it is just so much water under the bridge.  Until the water level gets to the under side of the bridge, as it did after Irene.

And I'm not the only one.  So most of us end up asking dumb questions on line,  in places where it isn't going to cost us reputation when we ask.

[Richardk]

Walter, I totally agree. The problem is most employers and clients think that you should have all the answers because you're the computer guy.

At one job I had a bad experience with asking questions. A co-worker said he would help me get up to speed with any questions that I might have. I thought great! Instead of "figuring it out", it would be much faster to just ask and document how things are done at my new job. Well, at our next staff meeting he proceeded to tell the entire group how much I "didn't know" based on the questions I was asking, almost questioning my creditability.

Note that we were both consultants in the past and looking back, I wonder if he was establishing that he was still the "go to guy" instead of me. Regardless, what a jerk.

[Walter Mitty]

Richard,

This is starting me on a long riff.  Instead of hijacking the thread, I'll start new thread over in coffee.

[DarkHumour]

I just used google-fu and found a website with the answer then recreated a little more concisely here.  A bunch of stuff is just registry key changes which happen to be configure-able from group policy.

[benali72]

Ok, I wandered around TechNet and found how to enter MMC and add the snap-in's required. However, the drop-down list box in MMC does not show GROUP POLICY as a snap-in on its list. I tried to add the LOCAL USERS AND GROUPS snap-in but it says it can't do it because the computer has XP Home Edition. 

Reference -- http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307882

[DarkHumour]

HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU!NoAUShutdownOption

XP SP2 or higher? I wonder what happens to XP home if you create and apply this manually?

Found this in the 'group policy to registry key' spreadsheet.  I should have had this years ago !

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=25250

[benali72]

Thanks, DH, I'll give it a try. My hat's off to your Registry expertise!