Autonomous Re-boot

[Wai]

I was playing late last night, when my computer shut down my game and re-booted without warning.  I lost several hours of play because I had become so engrossed that I had forgotten to save as I normally do every hour or so.

This has happened before, and I am pretty certain that it is associated with microsoft updates, as every time the microsoft message about new updates being installed appears.  It is the same thing as you get when working on spreadsheets, word  etc., except fpr the warning that the computer will re-boot in a certain length of time unless you select the delay option.  I am assuming that this warning is given, but does not over-ride The Sims, so you don't get it. 

Is there any way, that anyone knows, to prevent this other than running The Sims in window mode?

[pallyndrome]

I think you might be able to turn off windows updates before playing - not exactly sure how (anyone know?)
As an extra thing, you could consider using one of Twallan's mods that saves the game for you regularly automatically.

[donatello]

Saver (the abovementioned mod) is sadly banned in challenges if I remember correctly what I read somewhere on our forum randomly once. But my computer simply either shuts down my game (abrutly and no processes) or even worse, crashes my pc. Then I must restart it and hope for the best... Both of these only ever happen when I failed to save for a while. Automatic updates (for windows) will have an icon displayed at the bottom right (by default) of your screen in the same place as your antivirus icon is. Click on it and turn off automatic updates there.

[grimsoul]

You could set windows to auto download updates but not auto install them or change the time that windows check for updates to a time your not normally playing.
For Windows 7 click Start, Control Panel, System and Security, Windows Update and Change Settings.

[saltpastillen]

Like grimsoul suggested I have changed the settings on windows update, so that it informs me of new updates but I have to install them manually. It has been working great for me, before that I had a lot of reboots when playing, or even doing other things away from the computer for a few minutes.

[Wai]

Thank you everyone,

Especially Grimsoul, as I have Windows 7.  I knew you lovely folk would know the solution.