Microsoft’s Automatic Update feature has always been annoying. I don’t care who you are, none of you can possibly say that it’s not annoying :) I thought that it wasn’t possible for it to become any more annoying than it already is, but today I was proved wrong.

My main gripe was that almost regardless of the update, the machine needs to be rebooted. You’ve updated my desktop picture? Reboot required. My IE install has had another check box added to the options? Reboot required. Notepad’s default font has changed? Reboot required.

Granted, some updates do need a reboot, and in those cases I’m ok with it. But every damned time??! For god’s take take a leaf out of the Linux book and stop forcing me to reboot unless I add new hardware. You’re given the option by an interfering message box to “Reboot Now” or “Reboot Later”. If you click “Reboot Later” becasue you’re in the middle of something, you’ll get that same damn message box appear again in 5 or so minutes time. My solution to this problem was to move this message box into the bottom right hand corner of the screen so that only a few pixels were visible. Clicking on the system tray forced it to paint over the top, and hence I’d be free of all evidence of an annoying popup except for it’s presence on the task bar.

So, that’s how it used to work. Now it’s even worse. Will everyone please give a big round of applause to the latest message box that greeted me after my last reboot after a batch of M$ patches…

Oh yeah, it’s now time limited! What a nifty feature. M$ are now forcing you to reboot to make sure that your system is up to date, regardless of whether or not you want to. Now you must click one of those two buttons for the message to disappear. If you click “Restart Later”, you’re back in the cycle of clicking it every 5 minutes.

Why don’t I just reboot? I’ll tell you why … because I’ve already reboot. Because I’m in the middle of something. Because I have a train of thought that I don’t want broken. Because I don’t want to have to wait for 2 mins for my system to restart, then another 4 mins for all the updates to be fully applied, then have another reboot, then wait all over again, only to then wait for the GPO to kick in and make sure that all my settings are up to date. We’re talking a possible 10 minute turnaround for a supposedly innocent reboot. While I’m working, that’s not the kind of time I want to have taken away. I want to click the “P*ss off and leave me alone” button. Alas, there isn’t one.

This new feature comes with a few added benefits. To benefit from them, picture yourself in any of the following scenarios:

• You wander away from your desk at lunch, and leave some of your work open/unsaved.
• You have an automated process running on another machine that you’re leaving alone for a few hours because you know it takes a long period of time.
• You have any kind of server with automatic updates turned on.
• You’re busy typing away, setting the keyboard on fire with the speed at which you type, and you see that message box appear and disappear really quickly … uh oh! … Which button did I ‘choose’?

M$, you really are a bunch of mindless muppets sometimes!