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Sophos Anti-Virus for Windows 2000+: disabling updates on power-up

Issue

Your computer takes too long to start up, so you want to disable automatic updates on startup.

Sophos product and version

Sophos Anti-Virus for Windows

Technical information

The AutoUpdate component of Sophos Anti-Virus is designed to update the anti-virus software while the computer is starting up. This ensures that you always have the most up-to-date protection available. However, on some computers, this can make the startup process too slow.

What to do

You will need to change the settings in your registry. Before you start read the warning about editing the registry.
NOTE: if you disable automatic updates on startup, Sophos Anti-Virus will not update until the next regular update is due.

  1. Open the registry editor and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Sophos AutoUpdate Service
  2. Go to the 'ImagePath' registry key and add  -NoStartupCheck to the end of the Data value. Ensure that you add the minus sign as shown here.

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If you need more information or guidance, then please contact technical support.