Microsoft Update Reboots PCs, Gives Users Little Warning

The latest round of updates from Microsoft that have been sent out to users with automatic updates switched on over the last few days has caused machines to reboot. This has affected people who were not near their machines and had uinsaved work on their desktop. My computer rebooted last night but thankfully I was only downloading a few files so I can restart them.

There's a large comment thread over at Robert Scoble's site and the general consensus is that users don't want their machine randomly rebooted. Robert mentions that it's fairly useless patching yourself and not rebooting as you are still vulnerable. However, as one commenter pointed out, and I agree with him, is that if you update but don't reboot for a few hours then you aren't really more vulnerable than if you didn't update at all. Yes it's true that people are exploiting newly found vulnerabilities faster and Microsoft are under pressure to release patches faster but I don't like Microsoft acting as the administrator of my computer and forcing my machine to reboot.

If Microsoft really need users to reboot why not bug them with messages that warn them that they should reboot but give them the option to reboot later. I've noticed this on some updates. The message will continue to pop up every 5 minutes or so - which is annoying enough to make users reboot - but it still gives you time to complete what you were working on.

Thankfully, as Robert is a Microsoft employee, he has the ability to pass comments he receives to the right people and he has done so. Keep an eye out on his blog for updates.