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Why Are You Asked to Restart After Install or Uninstall Software?

Posted By Raymond In Category: Computer

Feb
12
2008

Have you ever wondered why are you asked to restart your computer after installing or uninstalling certain softwares? This happens nearly most of the time and I bet most of you never really asked why do you need to restart or what will happen when you restart your computer. Sometimes it is really annoying because you’re in the midst of doing something and you’re prompted to restart. Of course you can always select “No, I will restart my computer later.” and only restart after finishing your work on your computer but to me, I sometimes tend to worry about the stability of the operating system if I don’t restart. What if I am unable to save my work after spending hours on it? Also, if you don’t restart after installing patches from Windows Updates, your Windows is still vulnerable to the bug that the update is supposed to patch. So, the best practice is to always restart whenever Windows requires to you.

Here is a very common prompt that ask you to restart computer after installing software or updates using InstallShield. It says “InstallShield Wizard Complete. Setup has finished installing XXXXXX on your computer.” You have 2 options to select that is “Yes, I want to restart my computer now” or “No, I will restart my computer later.”
Yes I want to restart my computer now

Here is how you can decide whether to restart or not when you’re prompted to.


The most common reason to require a reboot after an installation is to update or delete a file that is currently open (or otherwise in use) by the operating system or running software, such as a core component of the system, or the binary executable file that is used by an application that was running during the install (which is why most installers always advise you to close all Windows programs before installing — some are nice enough to list running applications that may cause problems, and ask you to close them before continuing.) So, if files that are currently in use must be replaced, a method must be found to do so after the files are no longer in use. Another reason to reboot the computer is to allow the installer to clean up after itself.

The simple solution is to record an entry in a special location defined by Windows that will allow the file(s) to be copied, renamed, or deleted after the system reboots but before most of Windows is loaded (or any user applications start.) It is this method that most installer systems use.

WhyReboot is a small (100KB) Windows application that helps you decide whether to reboot your computer after running an installer. It does this by displaying a list of “pending file operations” (rename, delete, etc) that will occur after rebooting your computer.

Here is an example of a prompt that ask me to restart my computer after installing Kaspersky Anti-Virus program. It says “You must restart to complete the installation/uninstallation of Kaspersky Anti-Virus 7.0. Click Yes to restart now or No if you plan to restart later.
You must restart to complete the installation/uninstallation of Kaspersky Anti-Virus 7.0. Click Yes to restart now or No if you plan to restart later

Now I run WhyReboot to see why Kaspersky wants me to reboot.
why restart after installing software
As you can see, Kaspersky is unable to delete some files in temporary directory created during installation. When I restart, the _u14D2N.tmp, Au_.exe and ~nsu.tmp will be deleted. Since restarting Windows only deletes 3 temporary files, it is NOT important nor critical to restart my computer immediately.

[ Download WhyReboot ]


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    • To good to be true

      Limitations:
      WhyReboot cannot report file operations that may be carried out by programs configured to run automatically every time you start the computer (HKLM\\\\Software\\\\Microsoft\\\\CurrentVersion\\\\Run), or a user logs in (HKCU\\\\Software\\\\Microsoft\\\\CurrentVersion\\\\Run)
      Currently, it does not report changes in driver, program, or service state that require a reboot in order to take effect: for instance, if an installer copies new drivers, programs, or services onto your system and configures the system so that these will be started automatically at boot or login, your system will have to be restarted. These changes are not detected by WhyReboot.
      While it may be possible to detect these kinds of system changes, this is beyond WhyReboot\\\’s scope at this time.

    • dave

      Downloads are stored in a temporary folder on your PC until they are required so they will not cause any problem with work you are in the midst of. Click ” Restart later” and then finish off and save work you are doing before rebooting. Create a `Restore point’ before you reboot in case the downloaded file does cause a problem so that the PC can be restored to its state prior to installing the file. In vista a restore point is created automatically prior to any new downloaded file installation

    • Prabhjeet Singh

      Hi Raymond !
      I have read your few articles. I like your blog. This is first time i am liking anyone’s blog. This blog Full of usefull information regarding computing. Keep it up…!

    • xxx

      Nice

    • Liliput

      I use Revo Uninstaller(Freeware) to take care of my uninstalling of progs. It also took care of removing the prog in the registry. I think it should work to remove WGA (??)

    • http://www.compucated.be tullius

      always nice to know why we have to reboot, thanks

    • http://www.ewall.org/ Eric Wallace

      But but but the PendingFileRenameOpeartions is _not_ the only reason why the installer/uninstaller would want you to reboot the computer.

      For example, an installer may not start the program’s services but wait until they are auto-started upon reboot–so you would have to know to start them. Or some drivers simply cannot be started in place but will need to be detected and run during the right time in the boot sequence.

      Or, an uninstaller may be unable to remove services due to certain program windows open (e.g. the Services MMC), and thus they won’t be removed until reboot… and if you need to re-install, it’s a bad idea to do that now because even if that service installs again, it will be deleted the next time you reboot!

      I’m just sayin’…

    • http://blog.ashfame.com Ashfame

      Thanks for sharing the application. I never thought of any utility that can do such a job. Good Find. :D

    • tnm

      hey ray, why don’t you have a full rss feed? It is easier to reed blogs with full rss feeds on rss readers offline then it is with the ones that have the “read more”/ “read the rest of the entry” link.

      thanks for the services you dish out though!

      GBY

    • http://tftb.net V

      The reboot process after any installation is just a OS confirmation steps to register all the registry changes.Whether to click “Restart Now” or “Restart Later” completely depends upon how the important and penetrative the installed thing is.

      Even the “WhyReboot” software cannot detect some registry changes which are performed by some malicious softwares too.

      Still nice post.Keep the good work.

      Cheers!!!

    • lakshmi

      Please help me with the below questions
      1) Can we stop the shoutdown process for some time.
      2) Which method in Install shield will cause the shut down process.
      3) Can i abort a shutdown process

    • fud-lite

      @lakshmi

      1) You mean delay it, or tell it to run later?

      To delay it, go Winkey+R, then type \”cmd\”

      Next, type shutdown -s -t XX

      XX being the number of seconds you want to delay the shutdown.

      2) You mean you want install shield to force a shutdown w/o asking the user? Not going to happen.

      3) Yes. If a shutdown is in progress, it is still possible to abort it. Hit WinKey+R, then type \”shutdown -a\”

      If you made it in time, then the shutdown should have aborted. Otherwise, buh-bye. ;-)

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