Power failures, UPS and windows updates

[Gatecrasher]

Today there was a general power failure. I have a UPS, so when there is a power failure I can turn all my equipment and PC off in a safe manner. But when I came to shut down my PC, Windows decided it would be a great time to install 15 updates and telling me not to turn the power off! Why no option to cancel this?

Well, it only got to 5 before the UPS died. Fortunately, when the power came back, it recovered okay from where it left off, so no harm done. I've Googled for some solution to avoid this happening in the future but without success.

Anyone know of a painless solution to avoid this happening?

 

[bekdik]

Why no option to cancel this?

Well, it only got to 5 before the UPS died. Fortunately, when the power came back, it recovered okay from where it left off, so no harm done.

Maybe because of the last sentence above?

 

[The_Unbeliever]

start - run - cmd (in administrative mode)

shutdown -s -t 00 -f

 

[Gatecrasher]

Maybe because of the last sentence above?

But I did read a few posts from people who said their OS was borked after this happened to them. And it does warn not to switch off power during the update.

 

[Gatecrasher]

start - run - cmd (in administrative mode)

shutdown -s -t 00 -f

Thanks!

 

[Gatecrasher]

Okay. In looking up the shutdown function, I found a post with another method.

CTRL-ALT-DEL

Then click the arrow by the ShutDown Menu and there are two shutdown options

(a) Shutdown
(b) Install updates and shut down (which seems to be the default action)

So clicking option (a) will shutdown without installing the updates.

 

[Gnome]

Hibernate?

 

[NomNom]

Why don't you just change the automatic update settings to only install updates when you tell it to? Or am I missing something?

 

[hungrybeaver]

Why don't you just change the automatic update settings to only install updates when you tell it to? Or am I missing something?

This is the most likely solution.

If you had installed updates but never restarted, then Windows would finish it the next time the computer turns off, which is what possibly happened here too. It's generally a good idea to restart your machines when updates are finished installing as opposed to waiting a few days/weeks.

 

[hungrybeaver]

double post :-|

 

[bubbatentoe]

You should have a cable between PC and UPS.

The UPS software should do a "graceful" shutdown when battery power = 7% or so.

Otherwise what's the point of having a UPS if it just dies on you when the battery runs out?