shutdownBlocker

In certain cases, when installing a program, the setup wizard will restart the computer without any warning. This is particularly annoying, especially if you have something important running in the background. If you want to avoid such situations, you can use shutdownBlocker. This simple utility can prevent anything from restarting or shutting down your machine. This way, you can avoid turning off your computer by accident and prevent badly designed installation wizards from rebooting without asking for any input.

The application is absolutely free and you can have it up and running in no time. It comes as a single executable, which you only need to extract and run. shutdownBlocker is compatible with all modern Windows versions and it doesn't ask for any special tools or services.

When launched, shutdownBlocker will automatically turn on its blocking feature. While this mode is active, the application will intercept and block shutdown, restart and logoff commands. You can switch between "Block" and "Allow" just by clicking the large buttons on the application's compact user interface. Additionally, you can tick an option to block all calls to shutdown.exe and MusNotification.exe.

The application comes with a few useful options in its configurations menu. You can set it to allow critical error messages to pop up, to run with or without a system tray icon and more. Its system tray icon allows you to switch between "Block" and "Allow" mode on the fly and to shut down, reboot or hibernate the computer immediately.

It has to be said that shutdownBlocker is particularly useful in Windows 10. If you have this application running in Windows 10, you will be able to avoid automatic restarts when the system inevitably updates itself.

Accidental or automatic restarts won't be a concern when using shutdownBlocker.