Updates in Windows Vista have added another one of those school of hard knocks lessons for sensible computer use.

Sometimes Windows updates require a restart so that files in constant use can be updated. This is normally nothing more than a mild irritation, although this means enough time to go to the shops for a coffee for my computer.

Vista appears to have added a new peril to leaving your computer unattended should you have decided to get a coffee without restarting. Should updates require the computer to be restarted, it will automatically restart five minutes after the warning above appears.

Luckily I wasn't doing anything important (that's Monday morning for you) so I decided to leave a couple of files opened and changed without saving. One was in the audio editor Audacity and the other was in The Gimp image editor. Hopefully, the new, easier to use Vista would prompt me to save my files before restarting.

That was obviously asking too much as a few minutes later the computer restarting without so much as a by your leave. Windows XP would at least stop shutting down because it would not force the shutting down of software for a restart.

The moral of the story is never, ever leave a computer without saving your files first,ever. I really mean it. It's good practice anyway but this is maybe too hard an object lesson.