If system failures and BSOD errors are causing your system to crash constantly, you may wonder if you should disable automatic restart on system failure.
You should disable automatic restart on system failure; it will allow you to read the error messages displayed on the screen carefully, so you can investigate or fix whatever is causing your PC to crash.
How safe is it to do so?
It is perfectly safe to disable automatic restart. The only drawback is that you will need to hit the power/restart button whenever a crash happens, which in this case, is an advantage. This will only turn off automatic restart on system crashes or errors and will NOT affect Windows updates.
Next, I will show you how to disable automatic restart on system failure.
(If you see the OOBEEULA error after a factory reset on Windows, read the article I’ve written on how to fix it.)
How to Disable Automatic Restart on System Failure
The process to disable automatic restart is the same on all recent versions of Windows, and you can disable it easily in a few steps in the Windows Settings, Command Prompt or in the Registry Editor.
On Windows Settings
- On Windows Search, enter Advanced system settings and click on Open:
- On System Properties, navigate to the Advanced tab.
- Under Startup and Recovery, click on the Settings button:
- Under System Failure, turn off Automatically Restart:
- Click OK.
Done. You can always enable it again by turning it on in the Advanced System Settings. If this method does not work, you can disable it either in the command prompt or in the registry editor.
(System crashes generate dump files, which can take up a lot of disk space, so I suggest you read my article on whether it is safe to delete DMP files on Windows.)
On the Command Prompt
- On Windows Search, enter cmd and click on Run as Administrator:
- On the Command Prompt, run the command below:
wmic recoveros set AutoReboot = False
- Now you can close the command prompt.
If you want to re-enable it later, follow the same steps but instead run the command wmic recoveros set AutoReboot = True in the cmd.
On the Registry Editor
- On Windows Search, enter Registry Editor, then click on Run as Administrator:
- On the Registry Editor, navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CrashControl
- Double-click on the AutoReboot entry to open it.
- Change value data to 0 to turn off automatic restart:
If you want to enable automatic restart, change the value data to 1 in step 4.
Conclusion
You should disable automatic restart on system failure if you are having system crashes. This will give you time to read the error messages so that you can investigate the issue.
To disable automatic restart, go to Windows advanced system settings > click on the Settings button under Startup and Recovery on the Advanced tab > and uncheck Automatic Restart.
Alternatively, you can disable it by running the command wmic recoveros set AutoReboot = False on an elevated command prompt.
Or in the Registry Editor, by changing the value data of Auto Reboot to 0 (located on: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CrashControl.)
If you receive error messages on startup such as “Windows cannot find C:/Program Files/WindowsApps/Microsoft.549981C3F5F10” or “Windows Script Host System: the system cannot find the file specified,” read the article I‘ve written on that.
