How to turn "OFF" automatic updates in Win XP

[Lin Evans]

Hi All,

Brian posted a "caveat" about Microsoft's plans to "update" Windows XP to a new and controversial service pack 3.

The new "update" will add a couple hundred megabytes more bloat to the size of XP and supposedly make it more like "Vista" - something not all of us are the least bit interested in doing. For a company who was ready to shut-off Windows XP in a month it's rather strange. Backlash from large companies like Dell, Lenovo, HP, etc., have forced them to "rethink" their strategy. Dell, for example, will continue to offer XP until Microsoft's next greatest "new and improved" operating system Windows 7 is available perhaps in 2010. This should tell you something about users acceptance of Vista.

So for those who don't want Microsoft's sp3 automatically installed on their system - something which could take up to two hours to do and may well start right in the middle of what you are doing causing you to loose edits or worse.... Here's how you shut it off:

Click on Start, Control Panel then on the "System" Icon. You will then see something like this:

Click on the "Automatic Updates" tab and you will see the above. The probability is that automatic updates are set to "Automatic (recommended)"

Click in "Turn off Automatic Updates" so it looks like above then click on "Apply" then on O.K.

Thats all there is to it!

Lin

[xahu34]

Hello,

on my own machine, automatic update is turned off, as well. But we have to keep in mind that this is a bit dangerous. Turning it off must either have the consequence not using the Internet, or to download and install the security patches published by MS on the second Tuesday every month.

Best regards

Xaver

Munich

[Ronniebootwest]

I agree with Lin, TURN IT OFF!