Windows 7 Update Hanging / Stuck

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Windows 7 Update Hanging / Stuck

Been updating since last night

Planet13

4:04 pm on Oct 15, 2015 (gmt 0)

Yesterday's windows 7 update worked successfully on two machines, but my third has been stuck on stage 10 of 10 since last night (going on 9 hours now).

What am I supposed to do if it continues to be stuck on that step?

By being stuck, i mean that I clicked the shutdown button, it started to go through the various updates, but apparently didn't make it through the final update, and it is just the blue(ish) screen that says something like, "Windows is updating. Please do not turn off your computer or unplug your machine" (Can't remember the exact quote because I am not near that machine now.)

P.S. When I say "blue(ish) screen", I am not referring to the blue screen of death. I am talking about the usual blue windows screen that appears on Win 7 whenever it is performing updates.

Thanks in advance.

Leosghost

4:58 pm on Oct 15, 2015 (gmt 0)

What am I supposed to do if it continues to be stuck on that step?

<penguins and runs>Download linux on an other machine..and install it on the windows one..worries over..:) </penguins and runs>

You can probably boot into a live linux distro and fix whatever is hanging win10..

or

Take out your credit card, go to the nearest apple store, be prepared fro some financial pain..but it will run seamlessly almost all your win software, as will linux, but some think ( totally erroneously ) that only non OSS is any good..

Planet13

5:24 pm on Oct 15, 2015 (gmt 0)

@ Leosghost

I love linux. I do. Really!

But I can't get photoshop / Lightroom to run on it (even using wine / play on linux)

The gimp is nice, and darktable is nice, too, but they ain't photoshop and lightroom.

I swore of Macs many years ago and have never looked back.

engine

5:52 pm on Oct 15, 2015 (gmt 0)

Nine hours is way too long.
This is not a technical reply, it's just what i'd end up doing, and that's be to shut the things down and restart. I know, not what you wanted to hear. I have found that in most instances it's worked perfectly, and the recovery was quick and easy. The times it didn;t work was when either the hard drive was on the way out, or the system went into recovery. After then, it worked.
HTH

tangor

2:40 am on Oct 16, 2015 (gmt 0)

Do a power reset (hit the power button or hold it until the machine shuts down and if that doesn't work, unplug the power cord). Wait at least 20 seconds.

Turn the machine on. See if it boots.

If it does not, RESTART and get to the SAFE MODE (usually pounding on F8) and then run REPAIR. If that completes, then reboot and see if all if well.

If that does not work, then download the Win10 ISO update and do a fresh/clean install. You have (I hope!) backed up all the data on that machine before you started this stuff!

Hoople

4:23 am on Oct 16, 2015 (gmt 0)

Try the Microsoft Knowledge Base, it's a Windows user's friend <G>

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2700567 [support.microsoft.com]

More info on the above https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2714434 [support.microsoft.com]

Hoople

4:32 am on Oct 16, 2015 (gmt 0)

If the above gives no joy you may need to do the full monte.....not for Linux 'fan boys' that pronounce it WinBlows! You've been warned <G> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/971058 [support.microsoft.com] Again, only if the post above doesn't fix it as the above is beyond tedious!

A few more options are offered beyond 971058 that again are for the windows tech inclined https://www.winhelp.us/reinstall-windows-update.html [winhelp.us]

tangor

6:04 am on Oct 16, 2015 (gmt 0)

Hoople, all grand fun, but in my experience, once borked take a different fork: ie. start from scratch. YMMV

@op .... there have been device/driver issues surfacing here, there and everywhere with less joy than the beaTles tune of that same title. Most turn out to be Win10 not able to shut down a device driver or kill a service during the install, but has proceeded far enough that the machine becomes brain dead. With hundreds of thousands of hardware/driver combinations out there, sometimes the best way is to start clean. The Win 10 ISO hasn't failed me yet.... but will generally wipe existing data. Others may have different experiences.

tangor

6:07 am on Oct 16, 2015 (gmt 0)

And that brings up my only true rant re: Win 10 for free:

The hubris of MS to think they could update all Win 7 and 8x machines AND THEIR EXISTING DATA with no problems. In what world were they living? Certainly not the Real World! ARRRGGGGH!

(Then again, thank you. I've been well paid by clients to fix this mess from time to time and time to time and ... well, until this time of crazy does pass)

Hoople

6:46 am on Oct 16, 2015 (gmt 0)

Hoople, all grand fun, but in my experience, once borked take a different fork: ie. start from scratch.

That's what those repairs above do, start the local database of applied updates from a fresher point. I do it several times a month on clients PC's. Mostly the in PC OS repair wizard fixes it. Windows 7 lesser much.

Full start from scratch AND reinstall 100's of MB's of updates? You must have lots of free time.....nothing personal.

tangor

7:41 am on Oct 16, 2015 (gmt 0)

Hoople... a Win 10 clean install does not have 100s of mb updates. That's the whole point. :)

I do manage my time.

Planet13

11:09 pm on Oct 24, 2015 (gmt 0)

Sorry it took me a while to get back to this thread.

So even though it was still updating, I went ahead and just held down the power button on the front of the box until it turned off.

Waited a minute (no reason... just superstition I suppose), and powered up.

Then it finished the update process and has been working fine ever since.

Thanks agian for the help.

tangor

3:28 am on Oct 25, 2015 (gmt 0)

Bingo! Glad it worked! (Most times it does as the soft restarts as part of the install process occasionally hang).