Turing my PC off during Automatic Downloading and Installing Windows Updates?

When I use my laptop, it's not for a long duration, maybe the longest being 15 minutes or so on average.
All I do the most is checking emails, browse the web for some information as needed and that is it.

With that being said, I have Automatic Updates turned ON at the moment which I guess it is the default setting.

These automatic installations of the updates run in the background so I would not know it is installing the updates or not since I am doing other tasks.

If I happen to Power OFF my laptop during the downloading and installing the updates, will it cause issues or would it just resume downloading and installing the next time I Power ON my laptop?

win11freak said:

I have Automatic Updates turned ON

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Not sure what you mean by this? I can't find anything called 'Automatic updates'. Do you mean 'Get the latest updates as soon as they are available'? If so then turn it OFF.

It should just resume downloading. People do it all the time. As long as it’s the downloading process and not the updating process, which happens when rebooting anyway so you’re good.
What’s not good is forcing a shutdown when you see your laptop with an “Updating” message after you choose to “Shutdown” your laptop.

Anything that updates when the computer is running is generally caused by you manually checking for updates, of which some don’t need a reboot. But as you’re manually running “Windows Update” you already know not to reboot until done.

win11freak said:

f I happen to Power OFF my laptop during the downloading and installing the updates, will it cause issues or would it just resume downloading and installing the next time I Power ON my laptop?

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It can. Turning off during an update can mess thing up. It can cause file corruption which in turn could cause the system not to boot. It all depends at exactly which point the update process is in. Otherwise, it would begin the update process the next time the device is booted up.

First of all, I would
set WU to not download preview updates.
Windows Update>more options>Toggle off "get latest updates as soon as they're available"
and
set your update options to look like this

Then, consider using one of the following 2 ways that would put you in control of when your updates are applied.
For someone who is not on the computer any more than you are you can set WU to notify you when an update is found so you can manually install it. The only downside of this is that you will get a notification every day to install a Windows Defender definition update

WAY #1 Set Windows to notify you when an update is available
You have Pro so you can use either of these methods.
Method 1. Using Local Group Policy Editor (Windows 11 Pro & Enterprise):

• Open the Run dialog box (Windows Key + R) and type gpedit.msc.
  
  
• Navigate to: Computer Configuration - Administrative Templates - Windows Components - Windows Update.
  
  
• Locate and double-click on Configure Automatic Updates.
  
  
• Select Enabled and under "Configure automatic updating," choose Notify for download and notify for install.
  
  
• Click Apply and then OK.
  

Method 2. Using Registry Editor (All Windows Editions):

• Open the Run dialog box (Windows Key + R) and type regedit.
• Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows.
• Create a new key named WindowsUpdate if it doesn't exist.
• Inside the WindowsUpdate key, create a new key named AU.
• Inside the AU key, create a new DWORD (32-bit) value named AUOptions.
• Set the value of AUOptions to 2 for "Notify for download and notify for install".
• Close the Registry Editor.

Way #2 Another option you might also consider. Definition updates for Windows Defender are released every day, but these updates are so small and apply so quickly there is little chance a power off would cause an issue. You could let WU update normally. Then when other updates are released, normally on update Tuesday, the 2nd Tuesday of each month at 12:00 noon EST, you could not power the machine off that morning until after updates automatically apply.
I have my calendar set to remind me on the Monday before update Tuesday so I can make an image.

If it was a concern, you would be notified by Windows

I never once ha a problem shutting my machine down while updates were being installed. Note that I am talking only about a clean, orderly shutdown. If it is at a critical point, it will simply defer the shutdown, finishing the current process before honoring the shutdown. This can be a royal pain because it can take quite a while and when traveling with a laptop I may simply not have that time. But there is a super easy solution:

Don't shutdown - hibernate instead.

If you have hibernation enabled (I always enable this on any laptop), then just do a hibernate rather than shutdown. It saves the exact state of the system so when you resume it will simply continue where you left off, including installation of updates.

NOTE: I'm not 100% sure that I ever did this right at any critical point. I'll try to setup a test where I have updates in progress and will then try a hibernate right at some critical point, but I'm 99% sure it should behave as I described.

Update: I was going to test this on a Hyper-V VM but forgot that hibernation is not available in a VM. This means that I'll need to install a fresh copy of an older build on a physical machine and then test as I am updating. I won't have time to do that until tonight at the earliest.

win11freak said:

When I use my laptop, it's not for a long duration, maybe the longest being 15 minutes or so on average.
All I do the most is checking emails, browse the web for some information as needed and that is it.

With that being said, I have Automatic Updates turned ON at the moment which I guess it is the default setting.

These automatic installations of the updates run in the background so I would not know it is installing the updates or not since I am doing other tasks.

If I happen to Power OFF my laptop during the downloading and installing the updates, will it cause issues or would it just resume downloading and installing the next time I Power ON my laptop?

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It won't cause a problem during the download or install process, it'll just try to pickup again next time you boot up .
Where the issue WILL arise is during the reboot process. After your updates complete and Windows either reboots automatically or you do it yourself , during this process you will see a screen that says "Do Not Turn Your PC Off" ..... do yourself a favor and don't , it'll cause all kind of problems you just don't want to deal with if you do, believe me I know, my cat hit the power button on my pc once during an update and it was a disaster, I wound up having to reinstall from a backup.

@win11freak if you’re that concerned, use an update manager.

I use WAU Manager to take over from Windows Update. It’s lightweight unobtrusive and simple to use.

After checking the small box at the top to allow WAU Manager to take over, checking the “Normal” option below it, you can click “Update Windows Now” and it will show you the available updates before proceeding. You can chose not to proceed or select updates to install.
It can also uninstall updates and check for installed software updates.

Sinto, that's a really interesting looking utility. Will definitely need to give it a try, although I have to admit that anything replacing functionality like that makes me a little nervous

I can set a policy for notification for download and install.

However, I don't want to get notifications from the MS Defender updates on a daily basis either.

So I decided to disable automatic updates entirely and do it manually. This is a better option because it allows me to get informed in case there are reports of these updates breaking things...It's quite rare, but it can happen.

antspants said:

@win11freak if you’re that concerned, use an update manager.

I use WAU Manager to take over from Windows Update. It’s lightweight unobtrusive and simple to use.

After checking the small box at the top to allow WAU Manager to take over, checking the “Normal” option below it, you can click “Update Windows Now” and it will show you the available updates before proceeding. You can chose not to proceed or select updates to install.
It can also uninstall updates and check for installed software updates.

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Your version is out of date. They're up to v3.8.2.0 by now.

I just wanted to follow up and performed testing as I noted previously that I would do.

I installed a much older build of 24H2 and started updates. Multiple times during the update process I hibernated the system and then booted it at which point the updates resumed from right where they left off. I performed the hibernation both while updates were being downloaded and while they were being installed. I hibernated a minimum of 10 times. Every single time I saw zero signs of any difficulties.

win11freak said:

will it cause issues ....

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No

win11freak said:

.... would it just resume downloading and installing the next time I Power ON my laptop?

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Yes

Thanks for all your time and help on this.

Think I will leave it on Automatic updates for now and see or test this even myself.

I will also be setting a policy to defer all Quality updates to at least 5 days in case people are complaining or reporting that the updates may have broken something in which does occur but rarely.