Shutdown - I don't care if you've got to install updates, DON'T restart, shutdown!!!

rbrian

Established Member
Joined
Jan 5, 2009
Messages
83
Reaction score
11
Points
17
Location
Aberdeen
How can I make it do that? This morning I came downstairs to find my laptop red hot after restarting itself after I shut it down last night. Is there anyway to stop it doing this short of disabling automatic updates? Or at least to switch itself off if nobody logs in for hours?
 
set it to hibernate after a set amount of times under the power options, this pretty much turns every thing off.
 
You obviously hadn't shut it down all the way. A shut-down computer won't/can't restart. It was probably in a sleep mode.

It's very sensible to shut down completely whenever you're not going to be using the computer for a while, eg overnight. A clean reboot clears out a lot of accumulated garbage from the previous session.

I always disable automatic updates anyway (except for anti-virus). It's my computer: I choose when things happen to it, not Microsoft.
 
Start -> Shutdown becomes Start -> Install important updates then shutdown (then restart)

There is no Shutdown option when it's got updates to install. The only way to switch it off completely is to pull the battery.

Under the power options I have it set to sleep after 5 minutes on battery, an hour on mains power - but 8 hours later, it's still on, waiting for me to enter my password - it hasn't even dimmed the screen!

Since 99% of the updates are security updates, I'd prefer to keep them automatic. All I want is for it to shutdown, and stay shutdown, when I tell it to!
 
Oh, OK. :) I wasn't aware that that was what it did. On my Vista machine I have no password, and it's set to inform me when new updates are available (in fact, there's a little icon in the tray telling that there are some at the moment).

As I say, I have it set up this way mainly because I want to keep as much control as possible, but also to forestall the very sort of trouble you're getting. I never leave Windows to shut down by itself; there's always the possibility that something will hang, and that's of even more concern if the internet connection has to be left on as well.

My feeling is that, even if the update is quite important, waiting until I'm ready to install it doesn't add significantly to the risk. I'm only talking about a hour or two at most.
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom