• Diyan
• On January 6, 2017

Automatically schedule restarts outside of active hours

As Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile automatically download and install cumulative updates, and you can’t prevent them from being installed, it’s a good idea to set ‘Active Hours’ so that your device won’t restart at a bad time and interrupt your work to complete the update.

The ‘Active Hours’ feature was introduced with the Anniversary Update for Windows 10, and you can find it in the Windows Update menu in Settings.

Here is how to set ‘Active Hours’:

1. Head to Settings → Update & Security → Windows Update.

2. Tap on ‘Change active hours’

3. Set ‘Start’ and ‘End’ time of your active usage. You can set the Active hours interval to anything between 1 and 12 hours. Windows will automatically restart after installing updates, outside of the Active hours.

Tips: You can override Active hours and set a custom restart time from the ‘Restart Options’ menu. You can only access this menu when there is an update available for your device. You can also manually restart the device by clicking on the ‘Restart’ button.

*Creators Update in 2017 will add another option for Windows Updates: the ability to temporarily pause updates for up to 35 days.