I am not sure about you but I DO hate it when I am in the middle of doing something with loads of windows and browser tabs open and I am cruelly required by the Windows Automatic Update to restart my computer to have it complete o_O So I searched the web and came across this, this and this. Some of their easier solutions read as follows:

1. Click Start, Run and enter the command net stop wuauserv
2. Click Start, Run and enter the command net stop "automatic updates"
3. Navigate to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services. Right click the Automatic Updates service and stop it

I am going to try the first solution. I hope badly that it work or I have to bang my head hard against a wall!!

UPDATE:
The first method looked like a working one at first, but then appeared as a semi-successful one on my Windows XP Professional SP2! OK, I typed and ran it using the run box :



The MS-DOS window opened and the "The Automatic Service is Stopping" message showed up :



Well, I noticed the yellow security icon in my taskbar (next to windows clock) and the wau(something).exe both disappeared. 30 minutes passed and I was about to breath a sigh of relief and celebrate my finally overcoming the auto-restart problem that a dialogue box suddenly popped upout of of nowhere! Oh noooooooooo, that was the same annoying auto restart message by the windows update BUT this time, it wasn't counting down to restart the computer, it was just asking to wether restart or cancel the process till some later time (30 minutes later I guess!) :




Well, although I didn't get totally rid of the auto-reboot thingy, it is yet good to know it won't restart my computer after counting 1-2-3 and boom any more!! Hmm, I don't think the methods number 2 and 3 would do any better than this as they are somehow the same as the 1st one. Interesting enough it seems that these work fine for everybody running Windows XP except me :-(

Update 2: Now I am testing the 3rd method as this auto-restart message appearing every now and then is Really really annoying even if it doesn't count down >_<
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