How can I stop windows from rebooting after an automatic update?

"The comment by Johannes Rössel to the answer InSciTek Jeff is quite a valid point. The use of group policy settings he mentioned was actually blogged about by Jeff Atwood a long time ago. The synopsis goes like this:

Press Windows+r and run gpedit.msc, you should get a window like this:

Now, Windows 7 has changed the order and added a couple of newer options I've italicized:

Do not display 'Install Updates and Shut Down' in Shut Down Windows dialog box
Do not adjust default option to 'Install Updates and Shut Down' in Shut Down Windows dialog box
Enabling Windows Power Management to automatically wake up the system to install scheduled updates
Configure Automatic Updates
Specify intranet Microsoft update service location
Automatic Updates detection frequency
Allow non-administrators to receive update notifications
Turn on Software Notifications
Allow Automatic Updates immediate installation
Turn on recommended updates via Automatic Updates
No auto-restart with logged-on users for scheduled Automatic Updates
Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations.
Delay Restart for scheduled installations
Reschedule Automatic Updates scheduled installations
Enable Client Side targeting
Allow signed updates from an intranet Microsoft update service

Personally I chose to enable 9, 11, 12, and 13. 9 enables only those updates that do not have to restart Windows nor stop a service. Enabling 11 actually disables the auto-restart, if and only if there is at least one logged user. 12 and 13 were enabled and set to their max values with the scroll wheel. 16 sounds good but won't affect users lacking their own update server. I took this from my own question.

Addendum

It's been pointed out that Home editions of Windows don't come with gpedit.msc, and you must therefore set things directly in the registry. There's probably more settings you could add besides NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers ... In fact I'm going to check that now. Okay in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU add:

AutoInstallMinorUpdates = 1
NoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers = 1
RebootRelaunchTimeout = 1440 (decimal)
RebootRelaunchTimeoutEnabled = 1 [I'm actually curious if that's what I wanted]
RebootWarningTimeout = 30 (decimal)
RebootWarningTimeoutEnabled = 1 [I think the above four don't happen due to #2]"

"start->run->cmd ...

net stop ""Automatic Updates""

That will turn off the service. It won't download or updates until you turn it back on tho. that's also handy for getting rid of the ""hey do you want to restart"" notices over and over again."

"After a shutdown has been initiated, you can stop it by running a shutdown -a command

Win+R
shutdown -a"

"Once you get the scheduled restart message after update you can disable it as follows:


Open Control Panel
Go to Control Panel\System and Security\Administrative Tools. Click the Task Scheduler icon.
In Task Scheduler, open the following folder Task Scheduler Library \ Microsoft \ Windows \ UpdateOrchestrator.
There you will see a task called ""Reboot"". Disable it using the appropriate command in the right click menu
Open this folder in File Explorer: %systemroot%\System32\Tasks\Microsoft\Windows\UpdateOrchestrator
Rename the file name Reboot without an extension to Reboot.bak
Create an empty folder here instead and name it Reboot


This will prevent Windows 10 from re-creating the Reboot task and
restarting the computer whenever it wants.

Reference: Sergey Tkachenko This is the only what that worked with me after searching for other different alternatives like editing Group Policy that didn't work for Windows 10"