Can’t Change Windows Active Hours (Or Windows Ignores This Setting): How To Fix

Ah, Windows Updates. When they work, they seamlessly keep our computers up to date. But sometimes they are the bane of our tech lives: randomly failing, or causing our PCs to restart at the worst possible time.

That’s why Windows rolled out the ‘active hours’ featurea few years ago. This was Microsoft’s attempt to solvefrequent criticism from userswho complained that their PCs were shutting down, even though they were still using them!

This feature allows users to specify when they are using their PC, and Windows then ‘guarantees’ that it will not restart during those times. Noice. Well, that’s the theory… in practise, some users still have problems with random restarts.

Key Points

How To Fix Ignored (Or Unchangeable) Active Hours Settings

Before diving into various fixes for this problem, I wanted to briefly recap how this featureshouldwork. After launching the Windows settings/control panel, go to “Windows Update”. You can thenaccess active hoursunder the advanced options section (Windows 11) or the “Change active hours” option (Windows 10):

The default option is ‘automatic’, which means that Windows tries to learn when you actively use your computer – and then it only schedules automatic restartsoutsideof these times.This approach clearly has a flaw though – the fact that youusuallyuse your PC between 6-10pm doesn’t mean that youalwaysdo. You might be gaming at 10am on a weekend, and Windows decides to restart your PC because it’s outside of ‘active hours’. Grr.

To fix this, change from automatic to manual and you can specify the hours yourself:

If all works well, Windowsshouldsave your newly selected hours and Windows won’t update between those times anymore. That’s the idea, at least. In reality, people still have issues with updates. Sometimes Windows simply fails to save these new active hours, while other times Windowsremembersthem… but then restarts during this time anyway! Here’s how you can fix this problem once and for all.

Turn It Off And Back On Again!

If you’re trying to update the active hours and the values simply aren’t saving, it might just be a temporary blip. Restarting the PC will sometimes fix this issue, allowing you to finally change the values the second time around.

It’s frustrating that the active hours options have this bug, but it will thankfully ‘fix itself’ most of the time.

Still Can’t Update The Values?If restarting the PC doesn’t help, it’s possible that there’s some Windows system file corruption. You can run SFC or DISM commands to check this, which I explain later in this article.

Check For Windows Updates

It’s ironic, however recent Windows updates can actually cause issues with active hours (if they introduced a small software bug). So it’s often worth waiting a few days and thenmanually checking if there’s any pending Windows updates.

To do this, go to start -> settings -> “Windows Update” (or simply hit the windows key and search for “Windows Update”, then click the first result). Then click the button to manually check for updates. It will be worth installing any updates that say ‘Windows service update’ or ‘Cumulative Update for Windows’ because these will directly fix bugs within Windows.

Once they are installed, restart your computer and try again. With any luck, your active hours settings will start working as you’d expect.

Temporarily Pause Updates

If you’re having loads of issues with forced restarts due to Windows updates, or you simplyreallydon’t want Windows to restart you by mistake, you cantemporarily pause any updates. This can work well, especially if you are working on an essay you don’t want to lose. Unfortunately you can’tpermanentlypause updates this way, but you can pause for up to 5 weeks which is pretty good.

To do this, launch the main Windows Updates settings (by searching for “Windows Update” after hitting the windows key) then scroll down to the “Pause updates” option. Then choose your preferred delay time via the dropdown box:

Double Check All Windows Update Settings

If you scroll down in the Windows Update settings on Windows (or click “Advanced options” on Windows 11), you will notice a bunch of extra settings. Some of these are really worth paying attention to.

Things like“Get me up to date”sounds like a nice, simple option, but it’s… not.This particular Windows Update setting is designed to restart your PC “as soon as possible”, even “during active hours”! In other words, if you have “Get me up to date” enabled, your active hours settings will just be ignored. So be sure todisablethis setting.

Equally it is worthenablingthe“Notify me when a restart is required to finish updating”option. By default it is disabled, which means that you won’t easily know if Windows is planning on randomly restarting to force-install the latest updates!By enabling this option, you will get a visible warning that a forced restart is imminent.

‘Disable’ Your Internet (By Saying It’s A Metered Connection)

If you’re still struggling with random restarts courtesy of Windows Update, you could instead try stopping all updates by using a sneaky workaround. Did you see the setting“Download updates over metered connections”from earlier? By default, Windows will not download any updates when you’re connected to a pay-as-you-go (metered) internet connection. This feature is designed to stop people receiving large overage bills for their metered internet connection.

Therefore as long as that setting is disabled (which it is by default), then you canswitch your internet connection to be ‘metered’– and then Windows Update will stop downloading updates. Neat!

To do this, open the internet/network options and select “Properties” for your currently connected internet connection:

Then enable the option called “Metered connection”:

Because Windows nowthinksthat you are on a pay-per-GB internet plan, it will stop downloading updates.While this method works well, it should only be used on a temporary basis (because you will eventuallyneedat least some of the Windows updates!).

Have Windows Pro? Use Group Policy

If you’re running Windows Pro (or Enterprise), you can specify active hours via the group policy editor instead. This can sometimes workaround specific bugs with a specific PC, and can be a good way of forcing active hours across a range of computers on the network. The Microsoft webpage has a good guide onhow to change this via the group policy screen.

Check For Windows Corruption With SFC And DISM

It’s possible that your battles with active hours is due to Windows corruption problems. In rare cases, Windows system files can become broken (or corrupt) – causing a range of weird bugs. Luckily Windows has a few ‘hidden’ tools that can find and fix such corruption, such asSFC and DISM.

SFC stands for System File Checker and it’s designed to check for corrupted Windows system files, and then fix anything it finds. To run it, firstly open an elevated command prompt – which involves searching for “Command Prompt” then clicking “Run as administrator” to run it as a high-permission user:

Once this is opened, entersfc /scannowand it should run automatically in a few minutes, fixing any corruption that it finds:

You should then restart your PC and see whether active hours works more reliably for you. If you still have issues, you can also check outDISM(which stands for the snappily-named“Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool”). There are a few potential commands you can run here:

Tip:I would run the first two commands, but only run the final/RestoreHealthone if system corruption has clearly been found. Otherwise running/RestoreHealthwill just delay you unnecessarily.

Disable Windows Updates Completely

If you’re feelingreally annoyed at Windows Updates, you could potentially disable the Windows Update service completely. This is not generally recommended because it will stop allfuture updates, but it could be worth knowing as a temporary measure.

To get started, click windows key + R to open the run dialog. Then enter“services.msc”and hit enter. Search for “Windows Update” in the list:

Right click this entry and click “Properties”. A new dialog box will appear for thewuauserv(Windows update) process. Change the startup type to “Disabled” and hit “Apply” to ensure that Windows Updates won’t trigger anymore.

You might need to restart your PC for this change to take effect, but you should then stop seeing Windows update notifications and random restarts!

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Tristan has been interested in computer hardware and software since he was 10 years old. He has built loads of computers over the years, along with installing, modifying and writing software (he’s a backend software developer ‘by trade’).Tristan also has an academic background in technology (in Math and Computer Science), so he enjoys drilling into the deeper aspects of technology.Tristan is also an avid PC gamer, with FFX and Rocket League being his favorite games.