I’m sure you’ve had to deal with this; It pops up every ten minutes after a major system update. Fortunately, it can be turned off. I’m going to help you to create a shortcut that will turn this nag off when double-clicked.

So, how to stop automatic updates from restarting your PC

Step 1

Your first step is to open Notepad. (Start > Run > “Notepad” > OK)

In Notepad, just type the command “net stop wuauserv” (no quotes, as in above). Then close the window, and select “Yes” to save changes.

Step 2

What we’re doing is creating an executable batch file which will run a command when double-clicked, to stop the Windows Automatic Updates Service. Make sure that your “Save as type” is set to “All Files” so that you don’t accidently create a text file. Save your file with an extension of “.bat”

Step 3

This cute little batch file is what you’re left with.

When Windows starts nagging you to restart, just double click this to run it and stop the service. You won’t be bothered again. The service will restart when you reboot, which is needed to install the updates in the first place.

Is there anything that Windows does that annoys you? Maybe we can find a fix for it. Are yu awrae of any easier way to stop automatic updates from restarting your Windows. Please give us some ideas in the comments.

Think it’s time to update your PC? Varun will teach you 5 Ways To Update Your Windows Operating System.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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However, there are circumstances when connecting to a PC isn’t easy or even possible, yet you still need the ability to reboot your web server or file-sharing server at home because an application is locked up or the server isn’t responding. These days, doing a remote computer restart is fast and easy – and it’s now even possible to do so from any web browser or by using the popular micro-blogging tool known as Twitter.

1. How To Perform a Basic Remote Computer Restart – Shutdown.exe

For those of you who don’t already know how to remotely reboot a computer, the simplest approach if you’re sitting on the same network as the target PC is to make use of the Windows shutdown.exe tool. The Microsoft support page makes the command a bit more complicated than it really needs to be, because there are a number of “switches” available so that you can tailor the shutdown command.

Essentially, from a command prompt or an application, you can issue the shutdown command using the syntax: shutdown -r -f -m \remotecomputerIP -t 00

• -m \remotecomputerIP – substitute remotecomputerIP with either the network name or IP address of the computer
• -r forces a restart
• -f forces all running applications to close
• -t 00 tells the command to restart without any time delay (zero seconds)

Depending on your reason for remotely restarting, you’ll want to use these commands carefully. For example, if you just want to set up an application that does a regular reboot every two or three days, you may want to consider allowing a user who’s currently on the computer to cancel the reboot, or at least allow them the option to save whatever they’re currently working on. 

However, for the purpose of this article, all we really want to do is remotely force a reboot if you’re away from home and you’re in a situation where your web server isn’t responding. To do this, the command above will work. The one drawback with the “shutdown.exe” approach is that you need to be sure you are connected to your remote computer as a user that has administrator privileges. When you prefer to keep tight security on your PC or server, this isn’t always easy to accomplish.

2. Remotely Reboot Your Computer Through a Web Browser with Shutter

One of the easiest ways to get around this security quagmire is by installing a free application created by Denis Kozlov called Shutter. The cool thing about Shutter is that once you’ve got it set up on your target PC, you can perform various functions on your computer through any web browser on the Internet. First, install Shutter to your target PC or server and the initial screen that comes up will look like this.

First of all, don’t worry about the settings on this screen because these are for when you use the application locally. However, your interest is in using the application as a sort of “web server” that gives you access to your PC from any browser. To set it up, click on the Options button and choose the “Web Interface” tab.

On this screen, select “Enable,” choose a “Listen IP” from the list and enter whatever port you’d like to use. Most folks just use port 80 since it’s default, however if you want added security you can use some obscure port. Finally, choose your Username and Password (required), click save and the application is set up – it’s as easy as that! The only last step is to make sure that if you’re using a router, you open up a “hole” so that you can connect to your Shutter server through the router. 

To do this, just go to your router administration control panel (usually 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1, depending on your router’s brand) and configure port forwarding as shown here.

Just make sure the IP and port you defined in Shutter is defined here and that it’s enabled. Once you save, setup is complete. Now you can go to any web browser and send not only a “restart” command to your computer, but also a whole list of other commands.

To access the Shutter service, you can just type in the IP on your local network. In my case, I’d open a browser and type “192.168.1.103:1087″ to access the web interface. From an external Internet location, like a library or from work, I simply type in my external IP assigned by the ISP followed by the port, such as “65.xxx.xxx.122:1087″ and the web interface will come up after you log in with the ID and password you defined.

Editor’s note: If you don’t know what your external IP is, just visit whatismyip.com

As you can see, the Shutter web interface lets you perform a whole list of tasks on your remote computer, including muting the volume, turning off the monitor or running a specific program. The great thing about this approach is that all of these commands are issued from the application running on your target computer, so you don’t need to perform any special security configurations to remotely trigger these commands.

3. Remotely Reboot Your Computer Through Twitter With TweetMyPC

Easily one of the coolest applications I’ve seen in a very long time, TweetMyPC is an application you can install on your target PC, just like Shutter. The difference is that in this case, the application “listens” intently to all of the “tweet” messages that you send out from your Twitter account. Whenever you issue a command such as Shutdown, Restart, or Logoff – the computer does exactly as it’s told.

Just install the application, go into settings and enter your Twitter credentials.

Click “Save and Close,” and you’re done! No complicated security configuration, no tweaking your router’s internet settings – just install the app, insert your Twitter credentials and you’re golden. Finally, go into your Twitter account and just issue your command.

The convenience of this restart technique are the awesome possibilities. Just imagine, now you can pull out your cellphone and text a Twitter “Restart” update to reboot your computer. Any place where you can access your Twitter account, you can issue one of these three commands to your remote computer. The good news is that the author of this application is in the process of developing a Mac version.

Do you know of any other cool ways to remotely reboot your PC? Share your own tips in the comments section below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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If my Mac isn’t performing any tasks and if I won’t be using it, I’ll set it to sleep. How to put mac to sleep? That’s equivalent to Standby mode on Windows computers. Since the PowerBook G4, all portable Macs including the MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro have a separate sleep mode known as Safe Sleep.

Set as the default sleep mode for portable Macs in 2005, Safe Sleep is a combination of sleep and hibernation modes. At the initiation of sleep, the contents on your main memory will be stored as a sleep image on the RAM and written on the hard disk. The memory is kept powered but if the battery is depleted, the Mac will shut down. After an adapter is plugged in and the Mac is switch on, it will load the sleep image which was saved to the hard disk and restore your workspace.

While this approach is, as they call it — safe; the whole process of initiating sleep is slower because the sleep image has to be written to the hard disk. There are 2 other sleep modes you should know about.

Sleep Only

Also known as mode 0, this is the old-school sleep mode. Only the RAM is powered during sleep, nothing is written to the hard disk so the process of sleep initiation is much quicker and so is waking it up. The downside is the lack of a backup if the battery runs out of juice while sleeping. The advantage: sleep is almost instantaneous.

Hibernation Only

Also know as mode 1 (or 5, for secure virtual memory), the contents of the memory are written to the hard disk, the entire Mac powers down. In this mode, sleep initiation takes the same amount of time Safe Sleep. Waking up also takes slightly longer than the normal sleep mode since it has to read the sleep image from the hard disk. This mode is equivalent to Hibernate on Windows computers.

I use this mode when I have to leave my Mac idle for longer durations but don’t really want to shut it down and also to save power. The duration to start up from this mode is somewhere in between a normal boot and waking from sleep — around 10 seconds.

On waking, a progress bar will be displayed as the sleep image is read from the hard disk to restore your workspace.

Image from Apple KB

And now, SmartSleep

Brought to you by the same guy who developed JollysFastVNC, SmartSleep combines the best of both worlds. It even defeats Safe Sleep at its own game.

SmartSleep is a preference pane which will allow you to set the sleep mode you desire (described above).

In addition to that, it introduces a new sleep mode: um, SmartSleep. Using SmartSleep, the ‘Sleep Only’ mode is used to put your Mac to sleep. In the case that the battery level drops below 20%, it will switch to Safe Sleep and write the sleep image to the hard disk. SmartSleep makes your Mac sleep quicker without jeopardizing the safety of your data.

What you should know

While Safe Sleep is slow, it is very useful. For instance, during sleep, the battery can be safely removed/changed without worrying about losing data since it has already been written to the hard disk. SmartSleep does not replace this feature because hibernation only kicks in at 20% battery level.

How long has your Mac gone without restarting? Which sleep mode do you use? Let us know in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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