How to determine exact date/time of Windows Update planned restart?

Question

When updates are pending, at login screen of Windows 8 there is a notification

Your PC will restart in 1 day to finish installing important updates.

Is there a way to determine exact date/time of planned restart?

Practical reason: Restart Friday 2:10 PM is different from restart Friday 7:30 PM because it can influence my planning of Friday's work. When restart comes during work hours, it can easily take 20 minutes until I return to the point where I left (opened apps, documents etc.).

EDIT: I don't think I'd like to disable automatic restarts at the moment. Generally I welcome them. Otherwise I won't restart until I meet the bluescreen :) but I don't want to go this way.

Answer 1

What you could do is schedule your Windows Updates for Everyday (or whatever day you choose) at say 3am then force an automatic reboot after Windows Updates by:

1. Making sure Windows Update KB2822241 is installed (it should be already since it was released in 2013).
2. Start Registry Editor (search regedit.exe)
3. Locate the following registry subkey:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU and right-click AlwaysAutoRebootAtScheduledTime then click Modify.
4. If the entry does not exist, follow these steps to add it: On the Edit menu, point to New, and click DWORD Value. Type AlwaysAutoRebootAtScheduledTime in the Name field then press Enter.
5. In the Value data box, type 1.

(Source: MSKB2835627: How to force automatic restarts after important updates in Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012)

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/force-automatic-restart-windows-update

Edit: If you really want to know what time it'll reboot, you could go to:

1. Control Panel → System Security → Windows Update → View Update History
2. Find the most recently installed update right click then select View Details.

It'll tell you when it completed it's update install. Since Windows automatically reboots in 3 days time, you can determine when it will restart by adding three days to the time. I.E. Windows Update finished at 6:33am on 10/15/14 then it should restart at 6:33am on 10/18/14.

Alternatively, you could also schedule a task in Task Scheduler for Windows Updates and schedule a force reboot after the scheduled Windows Updates runs.

Either way, it would be easier to schedule your automatic updates and reboot in the middle of the night/when you know you won't be using the computer than to find the time of when it updated and schedule your day around it.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/wsus/archive/2013/10/08/enabling-a-more-predictable-windows-update-experience-for-windows-8-and-windows-server-2012-kb-2885694.aspx

Answer 2

Finally, I've found an answer by myself^[1]... I can't understand I did not look at the very obvious place earlier. Installation time of recent update is visible right after opening Windows Update control panel. Add 3 days and you will get restart time.

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[1]: ^{after I found the solution and returned to this question, I saw that in meantime something similar was added to BNP0007's answer, although it requires more steps to get the result.}