How do I stop the Windows 8 restart clock; '15 minutes' and counting...?

Solution 1:

One quick way to reset the timer, is to lock your computer (WindowsKey + L). Your computer won't restart if it is locked. You can then either logon again (giving you valuable time to save the things you want saved), or stop the update service all together.

Prevent imminent reboot:

WinKey + L (Lock your computer) and log on again

Then you may decide to postpone rebooting until you do this yourself by stopping the update service. Fastest way to stop the update service is using PowerShell or a commandline:

PowerShell:

Stop-Service wuauserv

Cmd: (Run as admin)

NET STOP wuauserv 

Note that resetting the countdown stop by locking the computer might be disabled if update 2835627 was installed (by either yourself or your friendly administrator). See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2835627/en-us for more details.

To prevent auto rebooting while logged on, please see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555444/en-us for a registry hack.

Be aware though that auto rebooting was not designed to give you a hard time, but rather because it is very necessary from a security point of view.

Solution 2:

The safest solution to prevent Windows update from automatically restarting your Windows 8 (or later) machine without disabling Windows Update or messing around with stopping services is as follows:

• run gpedit.msc
• browse to Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Update
• edit No auto-restart with logged on users for scheduled automatic updates installations
• set it Enabled

Note that this isn't going to stop a timer that has already started. Once upon a time you could use shutdown -a to stop a shutdown timer, but this doesn't work in this instance. If you've currently got a timer up and you desperately need a few more minutes, stopping the Windows Update service until you're ready is probably the way forward.