"Failure configuring Windows updates. reverting changes..."

[Moonlily]

Hello,

I did a system restore the other day, all went well, today it tells me there are 231 updates... so it starts downloading them, then installed them, that already took like 3 hours, then it finally says it needs a restart. I restart it and starts configuring... another 3 hours later it reboots itself, it looked like it had finished, but now instead it says "Failure configuring Windows updates. reverting changes...". It's been stuck on that for hours, I've tried turning the laptop off, I've even tried booting in safe mode but it still goes back to the same message...
What now???

[narzinor]

From what I've found, if you can try safe mode with command prompts, that might let it boot into safe mode when regular safe mode doesn't work. You could also try a windows recovery CD and try to fix boot issues from that and see if it helps.

If you -can- get into safe mode, opening up task manager with alt+ctrl+del will let you force stop the update process, then restarting should fix it.

[Knslyr]

Hello,

I did a system restore the other day, all went well, today it tells me there are 231 updates... so it starts downloading them, then installed them, that already took like 3 hours, then it finally says it needs a restart. I restart it and starts configuring... another 3 hours later it reboots itself, it looked like it had finished, but now instead it says "Failure configuring Windows updates. reverting changes...". It's been stuck on that for hours, I've tried turning the laptop off, I've even tried booting in safe mode but it still goes back to the same message...
What now???

Just install a few updates at a time. It usually gets problematic when updating so many at the same time.

[Javelin3o4]

There are a couple windows updates that had issues with UEFI systems, you had to go into the BIOS and disable SecureBoot, install the updates and re-enable SecureBoot when it was done.

[noteworthynerd]

Just install a few updates at a time. It usually gets problematic when updating so many at the same time.

This. If you manage to get back into Windows, only install a handful (a couple dozen at a time, starting with Service Packs by themselves) until you get everything patched.

I had this issue with a brand new server a couple months ago and I ended up having to rebuild it.

Like Javeling3o4 said, try changing the Boot mode, but that didn't help me with my issue above. Good luck!

[Ciddy]

Yeah, I agree with doing the updates in small batches at a time. Let your system finish pulling its head out of its ass first (with the "reverting changes" stuff). Don't try to force shutdown on it or anything. It should eventually finish that and get you back to your desktop.

Once that's done, start doing updates in small batches. As noteworthynerd said, I'd start with things like service packs first (do these one at a time). Once you get those out of the way, start doing updates in groups of like 20-30 at a time.