Software should never reboot a computer.
I don't care what files are copied or what DLL's are moved. I don't care what registry keys you changed or what drivers are installed. I don't want software to ever reboot my computer.
It drives me crazy when a program thinks it's so important that I should stop everything that I'm doing to wait for it to reboot. Examples of bad behavior:
- Reboot now or I'll keep bugging you. You can't say no. Microsoft does this in some software updates. It's software just bytes, memory and instructions. Can't we hot patch things yet? Most updates are minor bug fixes, don't reboot my computer for this minor maintanance.
- Auto-closing all my programs. I've seen this a couple times, all of a sudden durring an instalation all my documents and files start closing automatically. Ahhhh! No way to cancel or say no. I frantically move between applications try save things before they close.
- Rebooting after seting up a software program. There is NO reason to reboot the computer for a puerly software program. Software should NEVER install operating system files so there should be NO reason to require a reboot. Many times I have discovered that even though it says to reboot the software runs without issue with no-reboot. Stop asking.
- Rebooting after uninstalling a program. This is even worse. I just uninstalled so I don't care about the program and now you're asking me to reboot?
- Rebooting while I'm not looking. I've seen some programs that have a time out or a limit of time before they reboot. Well what happens if I'm away from my computer? Never , ever, ever do this.
Times when a reboot is justified
- Reinstalling the OS, and even here I should only reboot once not 4-5 times.
- Installing new internal hardware.
- That's it.