Have you ever seen the Windows login screen on your monitor and thought, «Wait a minute, didn't I tell it to shut down?» For a while, I doubted myself: Maybe I had told Windows to «update and restart» instead of «update and shut down.» And maybe I should go check the burners on the stove, because clearly I can't be trusted with on/off states.
But no, it wasn't me. When I mentioned this experience in a meeting recently, another PC Gamer editor said, Wait a minute, you too?
Windows has been doing this since at least 2021, when someone asked what was up with their PC restarting instead of shutting down after updates on the official Windows forum.
Then, about eight months ago, a dozen people reported the problem in a Reddit thread. That's around the time it started happening for me.
Some say it happens whenever Windows needs to restart multiple times to apply an update, but I'm not sure about that—seems like it just restarts once, regardless of whether I tell it to update and shut down or update and restart.