Jon Galloway describes how to disable the restart of Windows after automatic Windows Updates. I've been looking for something like this for some time now, but didn't have the idea of inspecting Group Policy. Browse the Group Policy to get a feeling of what can be done with it. It's amazing how comprehensive the list of tweaks is.
Unfortunately there's no built-in shortcut to Group Policy anywhere inside the Control Panel and the Administrative Tools on most versions of Windows. (IIRC there is one on Active Directory-enabled Domain Controllers.) So if you're wondering how to access Group Policy on the workstation and server versions of Windows (2000, XP and 2003) without AD, run gpedit.msc under an administrative session.
Another possibility is to run Microsoft Management Console (mmc.exe) and add the Group Policy Snap-In using the File menu.
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