Shortcut Vulnerability patch is available

[#1]

Heads up: The patch for the widely reported zero-day vulnerability in the way all modern Windows versions handle shortcut (*.lnk) files is now available through Windows Update.

[#2]

I started my Windows 7 machine and registry updates took place automatically. After I did what I wanted to do (in a non-privileged account) I put the machine to sleep. When I fired the machine up again I was faced with a "Please Wait" message. I did. After a while I got bored and went away to make and eat some sandwiches. The same message was displayed when I returned. On the point of considering a system restore I tried CTRL+ALT+DEL and to my surprise got a response. I chose Start Task Manager and immediately my desktop appeared.
I have "Download updates but let me decide whether to install them" selected so I am not best pleased that my machine was updated before I had a chance to look into the implications.

[#3]

I should probably reboot the work lappy at some point today!
Slightly OT, but the inability to get rid of this recurring pop-up without restarting is is one of the things that really annoys me about Windows XP. I was glad when I noticed the annoyance had been addressed in Vista and Windows 7.

[#4]

That bugs me as well - I wonder if there is a registry setting for how long "later" is?
Edit:

Quote

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\windows\Windows Update Have you ever applied an update to a server and then had Windows prompt you to reboot the server at a time that just wasn’t convenient? Personally, I’ve always found it annoying that Windows Update keeps prompting you to reboot your server every few minutes while you are trying to work. You can however change the reminder frequency. To do so, simply create a registry key named RebootRelaunchTimeout. The value that you assign to this registry key should reflect the number of minutes that you want Windows to wait between reminders. For example, if you wanted a reminder every half hour, then you would set the value to 30. You can set the RebootRelaunchTimeout registry key to use any positive integer from 1 to 1440.

Edit 2: Just doing a bit more checking on that information - may not be right for XP
Edit 3: NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers may be a better bet!

[#5]

Final answer - you can do it through the policy editor. See http://4sysops.com/archives/disable-restart-after-windows-automatic-updates/
Edit: This is what it puts in the registry:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU]
"NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers"=dword:00000001
"RebootRelaunchTimeoutEnabled"=dword:00000001
"RebootRelaunchTimeout"=dword:0000003c

That says don't automatically reboot after installing updates (e.g. if you've left the PC unattended while it installs the updates). It will still give the reboot reminder but that is set to every 60 minutes (60=3c).
Those that know what they are doing may make the above in to a reg file and merge it in.