Seriously Microsoft!?

[Toby]

So, as I was in the middle of things come the end of the day at work, I simply locked my computer and switched the monitors off. Next morning, I'm confronted by a logon prompt rather than an unlock one. That's weird think I, there hasn't been a power outage or anything, so maybe it blue screened and rebooted or something.

I check the event logs and discover that, at 3am, it downloaded some updates and then, as one required a reboot, took it upon itself to do so! So despite the computer being logged in and with numerous applications open, so patently 'in use', Windows decided it would force a reboot.

Not only that, but it force-closed applications too! I had a query window open in SQL Management Studio and, when this app was asked to close, it had obviously asked whether to save the query. Windows had then force-closed the app as, when I restarted it, it went into recovery mode and asked if I wanted to try to recover the files.

Normally I change the Windows Update settings to just tell me about updates and leave me to download and install them when I want to but, following a recent reinstall, I'd forgotten to change this.

What I want to know is what utterly brain-dead moron at Microsoft thought this was a good idea? By default, Windows will take it upon itself to force a reboot when you're not there, even if the machine is logged on and applications are running and even if those apps don't respond to a 'polite' close request.