MOTHERFUCKING AUTOMATIC UPDATES

[Sqthreer!]

Okay I'm pretty much fed up with them now.

So you know how every now and then Windows will show that dumb little yellow shield in the task tray and you can click it and install them, yes? Well I don't know what the deal is with mine, but regardless of whether or not I turn them off, the notification shield is always there. I can go ahead and download and install them, but about five minutes later, it will come up again with some more updates, or the same ones, I'm not sure (although it never says anything about them failing to download or install.)

But mainly, my question is this: How do I prevent it from popping that piece of shit dialog box up where my only options are to restart now or have this asshole box take focus of all my windows and screw up whatever I'm doing every five minutes?

Of course, the problem might be that my copy of Windows XP Pro isn't exactly "official" and thus has some screwy things going on.

DARN YOU WINDOWSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!! :'[

[Spectere]

So you know how every now and then Windows will show that dumb little yellow shield in the task tray and you can click it and install them, yes? Well I don't know what the deal is with mine, but regardless of whether or not I turn them off, the notification shield is always there. I can go ahead and download and install them, but about five minutes later, it will come up again with some more updates, or the same ones, I'm not sure (although it never says anything about them failing to download or install.)

Try going through the web interface (use Internet Explorer, click Tools, and select Windows Update) and try installing them from there.  If there's an error in the install process you'll see it there.

But mainly, my question is this: How do I prevent it from popping that piece of shit dialog box up where my only options are to restart now or have this asshole box take focus of all my windows and screw up whatever I'm doing every five minutes?

You don't.

If you get that screen, there is a partially installed update on your system due to it having to replace a file that's currently in use or one that's a major system file.  If you continue to use your system without rebooting your applications may fail until you do.

[Bobbias]

http://4sysops.com/archives/disable-restart-after-windows-automatic-updates/

Here you go, this can disable the "reboot in the middle of something important" popups.

[Spectere]

^ Uh, not really a good idea per the reasons I stated.

You'd be better off just setting the system to download automatically and install manually.  It doesn't annoy you much if there are pending updates and you have that setting on (once a day, IIRC).

[Bobbias]

Well, I get tired of the "please reboot" crap if I'm planning on rebooting it when I'm done with the computer, but that doesn't happen to coincide with the computer's scheduling hours.

Albeit, my computer rarely gets rebooted unless I have applied updates, and I'm a sporadic updater at best, I still like the comfrot of knowing I am in charge of the computer, not it. I just don't like the computer doing things I haven't told it to.

[Spectere]

...which is why I suggested just downloading the updates automatically and installing them.  If you're busy and don't want to reboot your computer, don't install the updates.  The icons sticks around in your notification area until you're ready to install them.

There's no need to disable minor safety features (I say "minor" because applications errors due to partially installed updates don't permanently break anything on any platform -- they're just a minor inconvenience) just because you don't want the system to bug you about rebooting.

[Bobbias]

Still, I don't think I've ever had a program crash because of a partially installed update...

[Spectere]

It's happened to me.  Windows doesn't replace files that are currently in use.  If you're using Internet Explorer and one of your ActiveX controls relies on, say, Media Player, and Media Player suddenly gets updated (since you weren't using it), you're not going to be able to use that control.

Believe me, I've had numerous accounts where users at my previous job didn't restart after automatic updates were installed, and some of their applications spontaneously broke until Windows could finish installing the updates.

The fact of the matter is that it's simply bad practice to use a partially-updated system, regardless of what OS you're running.

[Bobbias]

Well, I never leave it too long before rebooting, but if I'm in the middle of something, I'm going to wait until I'm finished, regardless of how long that is. And lucky me, I barely ever use IE or WMP. I wouldn't care if either of them were permanently removed from my system.

[Spectere]

IE and WMP were just examples...that can (and will) happen to any program that relies on a component that was updated.

[Sqthreer!]

Well it's all solved anyhow. My new hard drive came and I finally got around to getting it set up with Windows and now all the annoying shit that was going wrong is fixed.

A fresh Windows installation is always so fun

[annon]

I had a dream those updates updated my computer to Vista and I was desperately trying to reverse it. Ironically, this was the day after I lost my Windows partition.

[Bobbias]

Wow.. Thats... Scary.