Looking to alleviate one of the biggest bugbears of Windows users, Microsoft has announced a new technology for the Microsoft Update system - called ActiveSense. The Redmond giant says that it recognises that many of its users find the lengthy and often unwelcome updates, that seem to happen at the most inconvenient times, very unpleasant and has looked to develop the new ActiveSense feature to fix the problem once and for all.

“We understand that some of our users have spoken out about the updates system and with ActiveSense, we’ve shown we listen to the users,” said a Microsoft spokesperson on Friday. “With compatible hardware, our new technology will sense the best times for your Windows PC to perform updates and it will only do so when you’re doing something else, away from the keyboard, in your very busy lives.”

Microsoft says the new technology is a “giant innovation” while making use of existing hardware technologies such as Bluetooth, webcams, IR and retinal scanners to be able to accurately tell what is going on around the machine in order to decide when to apply a new round of updates.

The spokesperson explained: “We wished to keep forced updates as we know that users are lazy and can’t be trusted to decide when or if to apply updates. We have our reputation to uphold and our users security and privacy to consider. With that in mind, ActiveSense does all the work for the user. Our new technology will sense when you have stepped away from the computer and will be smart as to when to decide to apply the latest round of updates. For example, let’s say you have stepped away from your machine to go buy a bottle of milk. ActiveSense will know. Or let’s say you’re making vigorous love to your wife on the bed next to your desk, ActiveSense will know and use the time wisely to go into update mode.”

The tech giant also says that the technology will have uses besides just the updates system - “Obviously such a technology can be branched out for other great uses. Coming soon, we’ll also be adding the ability for ActiveSense to lock your PC down and even completely wipe the OS if the situation is deemed necessary. Let’s say some meth addict robbers break into your home and brutally murder you - ActiveSense will quickly realise and completely lock the system down. After all, no one wants someone to get their hands on an illegitimately obtained copy of Windows.”

Microsoft says that they know ActiveSense won’t work “perfectly in all cases” and may still inconvenience users at times, but they believe that users will ultimately embrace the convenience and the benefits to privacy and security. The tech giant also says they believe the system will only “get smarter” over time. A factor, as it turns out, that nearly got incorporated into the name.

“We did consider naming it SmartSense but we believe someone has probably used that already and we didn’t feel like buying anyone out to use it,” the spokesperson added. “Plus we thought the name might be seen as to insult the intelligence of our users.”