If the Automatic Updates service finds any updates it usually starts downloading them right-away, and will notify you of this by displaying a yellow shield icon in the System Tray at the bottom right of your screen, as illustrated below.

Hovering your mouse-pointer over the icon may bring up some detail of what's going on, and whether you need to take any action.

If you see the shield icon, always check to see if further action is needed by you. Otherwise you could find your computer isn't being protected. The screenshot above shows an example where you do need to take action.

If you are asked to click on the shield to install updates, this may bring up a dialogue box similar to the one below. Choose the 'Express' option to begin installation without further ado, or choose 'Custom' if you want to see exactly what's going to be installed. If you choose the Express option the screen below will disappear and the updates will install in the background. If you get a message that says you need to reboot you can safely just ignore it and shutdown your computer before you leave at night. This will take care of the installed updates.

If you normally don’t shutdown your computer at night you will need to install them during office hours and reboot the computer during the day. If we see that your computer has not been updated for a period of time we will need to visit the computer, install the updates and reboot. These updates are important to everyone on campus. Un-patched computers allow viruses and spy-ware on to our computer network which can spread to all computers.

If you decide you don’t want to install the updates right away, you can have your computer install them when you go to shutdown your computer at night. When you go to turn off your computer you will see the shutdown screen like the one below. If you see this screen just click OK and the computer will install the updates and then power off.

This update process typically happens only once a month. Usually the second week of every month we will approve updates and send them to your computer for installation. Initially it may seem like it is happening more often, this is because your computer is just catching up with its updates. Once it is all caught up you should only see this happening roughly once a month.

Either way you choose to install the updates is perfectly fine with us. The reason we leave it up to you to install is because most updates require a restart after the installation is complete. We do not want to bother you during your day to restart the computer.

The UMFK IT department appreciates your cooperation.