In order to configure no auto reboot settings for windows XP Professional and Home your windows must have service pack 2 installed.

But the to remove auto reboot for windows XP home and Professional are different.

For Windows XP Professional:

  • Open Start >> Run and type gpedit.msc (group policy editor) and press Enter

  • Navigate to the following path


    Local Computer Policy\Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\ Windows Components\Windows Update


  • Double click “No auto-restart for schedule Automatic Updates installations” and select to enable this setting.

  • Restart windows.




For Windows XP Home Edition:


  1. Procedure for windows XP Home edition is quite different as it doesn’t have group policy editor.

  2. Open Start >>Run and type regedit (registry editor )

  3. Navigate to the following path[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU]

  4. Locate the following keys:

    “RebootRelaunchTimeoutEnabled” and “NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers” and set their values as 0 and 1

  5. f these registry key doesn’t exist create them with type as dword values in this registry location.

  6. Exit registry and restart.



Note: Whenever modifying any keys in the Registry, be sure to make a backup of the entire Registry in case something goes wrong.