It may be done updating; or there is finally nothing that needs updating.

My laptop did this often (Windows Vista) – it updated constantly. It would update for long periods of time, just before shut down, as you stated. The updates would then stop for a period of time.

A PC shouldn’t be constantly updating like that, once every few months is the norm.

I would say your computer has fixed itself, and infact it was broken before with the constant updates.

I agree with the other posters, it shouldn’t be constantly updating. Plus Vista is now out of date (Thank fuck for Windows 7) Wait you didn’t state what OS you have. What are you using?

The reason why your laptop has stopped updating because all the files that needs to be updated are currently updated now. The reason why your system keeps updating the files is that you must’ve use the Internet on your notebook and when you shutdown your notebook it updates your windows files.

There is an option if you are using windows 7 in control panel to stop the system from updating the files. Check that may be this is turned off.

There are no new updates. This is why your laptop is not updating.

Go to Control Panel -> System and Security -> Windows Update -> Go to the Settings for it. Does it say “Never check for updates (Not recommended)”?
If yes: Change it to another choice (Pick whichever you think is best).
If no: Then you are still getting updates.

Windows does not need to update every time you shut down your computer, it will only update when there is a patch with which to update. Sometimes this will occur a few times in a few days, or sometimes it will be weeks between updates. It all depends on the need.

My two Win7 systems are set to update automatically, but they only do so about a couple of times a month on average. See, they can’t update if there are no updates to install. If your system used to update that often then there were (and possibly still are) quite a few issues. In that, I think @trickface nailed it.