BleepingComputer.com: How To Stop Windows Update And Remove Icon

To stop Updates and remove the icon go onto

start>control panel>administrative tools>Services

right click on automatic updates and press stop.
The icon should now disapear and the updates should stop bothering you


Enjoy

The Fonz, on Mar 12 2006, 05:44 PM, said:

This may be all well and good to remove one annoyance and create another without advising our newer less experienced members, of this fact. But I cannot agree. The possible and probable consequences of taking the action in the first post above, are as follows:

Disabling auto updates forces you to manually go to the MS update site and check for updates. Failure to do this on a regular basis does two things. One, if you wait too long you run the risk of being held hostage for a multitude of updates. This will be even more fun for those of you who have dialup. And take possibly hours to download updates.

Two, when you realize it's going to take forever to keep up. You might quit altogether and leave yourself open to all the badness that an unpatched, unupdated OS has to offer. Which will then leave you at the mercy of all sorts of malware to manually remove. When you come to that realization. You will remember that you disabled auto updates.

You then will be visiting us wondering what happend, how did I get infected, or why doesn't my MS App work right. And we will tell you that you don't have the latest updates from MS.

So the short story here is, Sure go ahead and disable/remove updates. But make sure you remember it's now up to you to remember to get them. And if you don't, I'll be here to tell you "I Told You So!"

Be (Current MS Update) Safe

Da Bleepin AniMod, Animal

I stand with Animal on this issue.

The tip works, but it is in the best interest of users to keep their computers updated. As long as the user understands that remembering updates becomes their responsibity, all is well. Failure to do so can leave you susceptible to so many problems... some of them very serious.

Be careful out there

rigel

me i would rather live with being buged by the windows update icon and leting it update when it wants,, then to have the hellish pain of getting hit with all the nice little nastys out there and then spending days fixing and updating windows (on dialup ) ... me i would leave it on .. thats just me

GarenaSix, on Mar 18 2006, 08:09 PM, said:

I wholeheartedly agree.

I would suggest that turning off auto updates could be a bit like sticking your fingers in a mincer,
1.UNNECESSARY
2.UNWISE and
3.VERY PAINFUL.

Well, for the record, I found it useful. I have a number of computers at work that are on closed networks in the stores of our business. The terminals that run the point-of-sale software have XP for the OS, but we do NOT have them accessible via the Internet, for security reasons; stopping the constant nag of WIndows Update was essential. Carry on!

Won't it do a problem to youre computer? Because like you can maybe have a spware on your trojan so its nice to just windows update run itself

Hello.

I recommend you regularly visit the Windows Update Site if you do not have Windows Automatic Update active already.

Lots of Hacking/Trojans use the methods found (plugged by the updates) that have not been stopped by people not updating.Update ALL Critical updates and any other Windows updates for services/programs that you use. If you wish to turn on automatic updates then you will find here is a nice little article about turning on automatic updates.

*Note that it will download them for you, but you still have to actually click install. Basically it doesn't automatically installs it you will still have to click it for it to install.

With Regards,
Extremeboy

Good tip.. But i'd much more prefer to keep my computer up to par. Makes me more confident that i'm not lagging behind.

The Fonz, on Mar 12 2006, 08:44 PM, said:

thankz for the answer.. i like it alot.. now it will not bothering me..

I keep getting update notice for Malicious Software removal tool and I.E 8 for Vista. Now the thing is i keep installing the update for the software removal tool and yet keeps coming back as needing installed. Second thing is I.E 8 good. Was chatting to a BT call centre guy and advised to uninstall it as i had it at the time. Now got I.E 7, how do i stop that one update from constantly annoying me

Just asking, but 1. Doesn't your anti-virus program do that job for you, and 2. by getting so many updates at once, doesn't that take up space and slow your computer down on it's own?

just wanna ask some question about updating.

do you rally need a geniune copy of the MS OS to updaate it?
i know you can update it but some of my friends keeps talking to turn off your auto updates cause MS can detect if you have a genuine or not. cause if not they can do something that you cannot open your PC again(OS will not work perfectly cause its pirated copy). just wanna know cause my freinds keeps askig me this questions .

MS restricts pirated copies of Windows to Critical updates only. If the Windows Genuine Advantage tool thinks that your copy of Windows is not Genuine, it will remind you every second of every day about it. Windows Vista and Windows 7 are somewhat more insistent, and may go into Reduced Functionality Mode. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Genuine_Advantage