How to Disable the Windows Update Restart Reminder Popup

One of my biggest complaints about Windows Updates is that after you complete the updates if you don't reboot the server/machine right away about every 10 minutes you get a friendly popup reminder asking "Do you want to restart your machine". I have accidentally clicked yes on a production machine during work hours before when one of these popped up, so they can be a pain and if you aren't careful they can cause more problems (angry phone calls in my case). So the best thing to do is disable this feature so that it isn't annoying and doesn't cause any problems. In this guide I will show you how to disable the Windows Update Restart Reminder Popup.

A few things you should think about before disabling the Windows update reminder, first once it is disabled you won't be warned that updates were applied and you need to reboot. So if you are in an environment where more than one server admin is applying patches, you might not know if someone applied patches the day before and the server is in need of rebooting. This could cause problems where the person who applied the patches forgets they did and doesn't reboot the machine, you won't get any new updates until you reboot the machine and there will be no warnings to tell you the machine needs a reboot. So just make sure you are either rebooting regularly or that you all keep each other updated to what machines were patched and which need reboots.

So to turn off the annoying Windows Update popup follow these steps:
1 - Click Start
2 - Click Run (Click Search Bar for Vista or Windows 7)
3 - Type CMD
4 - Type sc stop wuauserv
5 - Hit enter

Once you have completed the above steps you should get a message saying the operation has completed. Now the next time you have updates after you apply them you won't see the annoying popup, warning you that your system hasn't been restarted since you last applied updates. That is all there is to stopping the popup, just remember to eventually reboot your machines/servers because you can't get new updates until you have rebooted.

Well I hope you found this guide helpful and are able to stop the Windows Update Restart Reminder Popup from constantly badgering your to reboot your system.