How to disable forced rebooting

[brunoais]

I'm getting annoyed that regular programs are being able to perform a forced reboot of my machine.

How do I do such that it becomes impossible to instruct a forced reboot of my computer?

This means that a forced reboot only happens if I give the OK in the shutdown screen (the one with the black background, the open programs list in the middle and the two buttons in the bottom). I don't want a program that runs shutdown.exe to be able to give such order.
That has already messedup many of my computer's programs to a degree that I'm already at 2h trying to fix some programs with corrupted files because they were given the shutdown order and then were killed during their self-shutdown sequence.

I'm running windows 7 Home edition x64.

 

[Digerati]

"Forced" reboot? To me, "forced" reboot means an update occurs without your permission which then gives you no choice but to reboot now.

Is that what's happening? If so, got an example?

Or are you notified an update is available and you click to install the update, and then the update requires a reboot? That's not forced.

Note before just about ANY update with ANY program, you are prompted to exit all your other programs. And that is to prevent exactly what you are complaining about.

Required reboots are common with updated operating system files, security programs, hardware monitoring programs, driver updates and more. But even so, updates via Windows Update and most other updates, let you delay the reboot until you are ready.

 

[brunoais]

"Forced" reboot? To me, "forced" reboot means an update occurs without your permission which then gives you no choice but to reboot now.
Is that what's happening? If so, got an example?

It's not.

Or are you notified an update is available and you click to install the update, and then the update requires a reboot? That's not forced.

I made an installation, yes. I had delayed the reboot by 2 times (4 hours each) and then it rebooted without prompting again. It was the event viewer that told me it was windows update that had done it.

Previously, it had been a program that had opened cmd.exe to execute shutdown.exe on my behalf. At that time many the programs have become screwed up but they recovered. This time, 1 of them became really screwed up... But that's a different subject.

Note before just about ANY update with ANY program, you are prompted to exit all your other programs. And that is to prevent exactly what you are complaining about.

Rebooting all my programs takes, easily, 20 minutes due to how heavy duty they are or are treated and the amount of memory I have (8GB). If I did that with every installation and update, I'd require many hours of my life just for that.

Required reboots are common with updated operating system files, security programs, hardware monitoring programs, driver updates and more. But even so, updates via Windows Update and most other updates, let you delay the reboot until you are ready.

I thought that was true with every single installation. Sounds like I was wrong, unfortunately. If only it was just a normal shutdown, I'd be able to turn everything off.

These programs are ready and robust in case if a power failure to recover back. The issue happens if the failure is at specific stages of file writing. In this case, 3s after giving the shutdown signal/message. That's what screw them up.

I want to disable such feature because I want to be able to delay the shutdown or, at least, give time to the programs to do their own shutdown sequence without killing the process unless strictly necessary.

 

[Digerati]

20 minutes is not right - it does not matter how "heavy duty" your programs are. And while you may want more RAM, 8Gb is a huge chunk of RAM. Even if this were XP and you had all sorts of programs loading at start, 20 minutes would be a sure sign something is wrong. With this being W7, there is no doubt in my mind you are having driver, or mapping to attached or networked locations, or malware problems with your computer that need to be addressed.

You should start by making sure your computer is malware clean. If clean, you need to look at what programs are starting with Windows and cut them down to only what you really need running as soon as Windows boots. For sure, your security and hardware/temperature monitors. After that, you need to be realistic and only start programs when you need them, not with every boot.

Look in device manager for any errors.

I thought that was true with every single installation.

No. It just depends on the specific file and the program it belongs to. Program and services files that MUST be started and running when the operating system is running are really the only ones.

I ask again, got an example of a program that takes forever to start or stop?

 

[brunoais]

20 minutes is not right - it does not matter how "heavy duty" your programs are. And while you may want more RAM, 8Gb is a huge chunk of RAM. Even if this were XP and you had all sorts of programs loading at start, 20 minutes would be a sure sign something is wrong. With this being W7, there is no doubt in my mind you are having driver, or mapping to attached or networked locations, or malware problems with your computer that need to be addressed.

Shutdown after a 4 day uptime of "normal" use, takes 7-12 minutes. I usually reboot 1ce every week. On the other hand, if I shutdown after a couple hours of use, it takes 2-3 minutes.
Full boot (including boot-time programs) takes around 3 minutes.

You should start by making sure your computer is malware clean. If clean, you need to look at what programs are starting with Windows and cut them down to only what you really need running as soon as Windows boots.

That was already done.

For sure, your security and hardware/temperature monitors. After that, you need to be realistic and only start programs when you need them, not with every boot.

I wish I could reduce that even more than how much I am already. I also have reduced the services on boot to delayed start, others to "manual" and then have a startup delayer to start them when the computer isn't doing much.

Look in device manager for any errors.

Nothing there. I solve them (the best way I can think of) as I know they exist.

I thought that was true with every single installation.

No. It just depends on the specific file and the program it belongs to. Program and services files that MUST be started and running when the operating system is running are really the only ones.

Your answer makes no sense according to what I mentioned :S.
What I mean, is that I seemed to be unable to delay the reboot procedure any longer than those times.

I ask again, got an example of a program that takes forever to start or stop?

How long does it need to be to qualify as "forever"?

 

[Tekno Venus]

Other thread: https://www.sysnative.com/forums/wi...-initiated-a-shutdown-sequence.html#post94339

How often are these forced reboots happening? I would like to try and get a procmon trace, but if they only happen once in a while that will be very hard.

If they are frequent, then these are the instructions to capture a procmon log. The only way to get procmon to survive a shutdown event is to use boot-time logging. This will cause the ProcMon driver to launch and close when windows boots/shuts down.

1. Download procmon from here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx
2. Start ProcMon
3. Click Options -> Enable Boot Logging
4. Leave Generate Profiling Events unchecked and press OK
5. Reboot
6. Wait for it to shutdown
7. Boot the computer again
8. Start Procmon
9. Save the boot log when prompted

The real issue here is the log size. ProcMon captures using Virtual Memory and logs can grow very fast. If you're waiting around a long time, the large logs can cause the system to slow down and are very hard to read.

Stephen

 

[brunoais]

Yeah... There's a really really long wait... Getting it to happen seem to be quite random...

I'm running it, anyway.

 

[brunoais]

Two programs crashed a while ago for accessing the memory position 0x0000000. Seems like a segmentation fault for accessing the NULL given by one of malloc() type functions.

 

[Digerati]

Your answer makes no sense according to what I mentioned :S.

You said you thought a reboot was required with every single installation. I said no, it depends on the program. If they need a service or driver to start with Windows, then a reboot is needed. But MANY programs don't. What's not to make sense?

In fact, many programs don't need to be "installed" at all. At a minimum, "installing" typically involves making or changing entries in the Windows Registry. Many programs don't require that and for them, you can just click on the executable to run it.

 

[brunoais]

Your answer makes no sense according to what I mentioned :S.

You said you thought a reboot was required with every single installation. I said no, it depends on the program. If they need a service or driver to start with Windows, then a reboot is needed. But MANY programs don't. What's not to make sense?

Ah, right... sorry, I wasn't explicit. It was about this one, instead:

But even so, updates via Windows Update and most other updates, let you delay the reboot until you are ready.

In my case, it didn't ask again after that 2nd time.

In fact, many programs don't need to be "installed" at all. At a minimum, "installing" typically involves making or changing entries in the Windows Registry. Many programs don't require that and for them, you can just click on the executable to run it.

Yeah. Installation can also include other steps though but yeah, basically it is unpacking, copying files and register its existence (and the uninstaller) in the registry.

 

[Digerati]

In my case, it didn't ask again after that 2nd time.

But that was after 8 hours so not sure what happens then - especially if 3am is in there because that's when daily scheduled updates come out. But my guess is you had an opportunity to reboot when you got something to eat, went to the bathroom or took some other break. And while frustrating, again, "shutdown after a 4 day uptime of "normal" use, takes 7-12 minutes" is NOT normal.

Hopefully, following Techno Venus' advice will clear that up and reboots won't be so painful in the future.

 

[brunoais]

OK. Thank you for your time :).