Saturday, April 09, 2016

Active Hours: Prevent Windows restart for installing updates when you are using the device

There are lots of feedback from Windows10 users that Windows restarted automatically after updates were downloaded and they were cut off from what they were doing as Windows restarted. Or it restarted and installed a new version of Windows.

Active Hours:

But now Windows has provided a feature Active Hours that will prevent this. This will make Windows restart less annoying and the user will have his say when to restart. Although now also Windows provides an option when to restart or Restart Now option but with Active Hours, more control for users is provided.

By default updates are downloaded and installed automatically and Active Hours actually do not change that behavior but they add an additional option which ensures the user is not disturbed by reboot while using the system.

This option is provided in the latest Windows Insider Preview Build 14316 and will be part of Windows Anniversary updates for general user which will be available later this year.

To access Active Hours,

Settings  >  Update and Security > Windows Update > Change Active Hours

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Clicking on it provides option to set the timings when you are working on the system and do not want Windows to reboot.

“Active Hours lets us know when you usually use this device. When a restart is necessary to finish installing an update, we won’t automatically restart your device during active hours.”

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So set the timings and Save.

Apart from that, in case you finished your work and now wants to Restart to finish the update process, there’s another option ‘Restart options’ just below Change Active Hours.

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This option allows you to temporarily override active hours and schedule a custom time to finish installing this update. Make sure your device is plugged in at the scheduled time.

So with Active Hours, a user will have better control over Restarts for finishing the update process.

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