I have an HP notebook with Windows Vista. I slowly got used to the childishness of Vista, but I cannot get used to the surprise upgrades.

You are in the middle of something on the internet, then all of a sudden the program shuts down, the screen goes gray, after a while the OS tells you that you are being upgraded. Finally, the computer reboots, after the usual many minutes of power-up stuff, you are back. You are not in the program you left so abruptly, IE comes up with different settings, and on top of that my router connection has been changed to a neighbors router.

Any way to defeat this Bull, short of getting an iMac?

how many times has this happened? only once?

what's auto-upgrade? Sounds dangerously invasive...

Start -> Control Panel -> Security -> Turn automatic updating on or off, select a setting other than "Install new updates automatically". It's the first thing I do whenever I set up my own box.

Thank you very much! I figured it had to be hidden in there somewhere. My default setting was to upgrade every day at 3AM, but I don't run my computer at 3AM, so it must have picked a random time whenever the computer is running. Well, I turned it off and will check manually for upgrades once a month or so.

that wont work windows have the right to upgrade your software whenever they chose without your knowledge. you accepted this when you read the licence agrement (yer right) as you are actually only buying a licence to use there software not the rights for it. If you have an internet connection they can update whenever the want.

http://windowssecrets.com/2007/09/13...-users-consent

You can however get around this with clever use of a firewall by blocking the update ipaddresses there is an article on it somewhere cant find it at the mo.

Cheeky buggers hey

why would you want to do that? MS releases new updates and patches for security reasons and you should update your computer with the latest updates.

to be honest i wouldnt i download all updates have caused me no problems and i respect updates that microsoft release. But some dont so it should be up to them.

the only update i don't download, ever, is the wga piece of junk.

Isn't that built into Windows Update in Vista. I believe in Vista, without the WGA junk you will not be able to get any other updates.