No, see, that's been configured for months. This restart just started happening a week ago, and wasn't labeled as an automatic update (it was back when decided to change the settings). I should get a pop-up asking for a restart, now or later. Instead, it just restarts. And I'm no tech whiz, but I'm pretty sure svchost never had anything to do with it.

At any rate:
The Local Group Policy Editor will only be available in the Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions.
The Local Group Policy Editor feature is not included in the Windows 7 Starter, Home Basic, and Home Premium editions.
Heh. Which explains why I don't have gpedit.msc on my machine.