Phantom Restart Menace

[The Dríver]

I've tried installing a few bits of software recently where I've received a warning that there's already a restart pending following another installation, even when I've not just been installing something. Even after a reboot I get the same message.

How can I find out what is prompting this and get rid of it?

[JQW]

I had this once on a Windows server. The fix was to remove certain registry keys, or to change their values, but I can't remember if the keys were specific to the software I was installing.

These two are the likely ones:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Updates\UpdateExeVolatile

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\PendingFileRenameOperations

[The Driver]

Thanks Paul. I'll have a look for those later.

Would a register cleaner program pick this sort of thing up?

[JQW]

I'm not sure. Registry cleaners usually just get rid of redundant keys from third-party software that's no longer installed, and don't touch keys belonging to the main operating system like these two. No harm in trying.