Once a week we open up the tips box and share some helpful reader tips. This week we’re looking at easily halting Windows automatic reboot on update, enabling Unity menus in Chrome, and putting tabs in your PuTTY interface.
Batch Files Offers One Click Reboot Halt
Dave liked our halting reboot tip so much that he put together a little batch file to pause updates until next reboot. He writes:
Thanks for sharing Dave! For readers with widescreen monitors (and taskbar space to spare) pinning it right to the taskbar might be worthwhile if forced reboots really bother them.
This appeared originally on HTG, but here is the ultimately convenient form. Create a new batch file with the following contents:
net stop “automatic updates”
pause
and save it with an easy to remember name: GOAWAY.bat. One click and it shuts down the update service. Don’t worry: it WILL come back next time you boot up, hopefully at a more convenient time before you get 11 windows open.
Just drag and drop a shortcut on your desktop. I changed to the “NOT” icon (red circle with a slash, to make it easy to find. An unhappy face would also work.)
Enable Unity Menus in Google Chrome
If you’re a Google Chrome fan using Ubuntu Linux, Caleb’s handy tip about enabling Unity menu support in Chrome is for you. He writes:
So many neat things can be found in the about:flags/about:config menus within Chrome. Nice find Caleb!
Tabbed PuTTY Usage
Mark writes in with a great application tip for PuTTY power users:
Thanks for the tip Mark! Readers who are interested in tabbed PuTTY should check out Mark’s suggestion and also a client we previously reviewed, Putty Connection Manager.
Have a tip to share? Send it to us at tips@howtogeek.com and you might just see it on the front page.
