"Preparing To Configure Windows. Please Do Not Turn Off Your Computer"

Anonymous
2009-12-03T01:02:16+00:00

Hi. I just got my new laptop yesterday with Windows 7 Home Premium. When I left for school this morning, I shut down my computer and saw that it had 22 Windows Updates to download. When I turned it back on this afternoon, it was stuck at a screen that said "Preparing To Configure Windows. Please Do Not Turn Off Your Computer." I decided to wait but it stayed the same for as long as I waited. Finally, I powered it off by holding on the power button, and just normally booted the system. Will there be any damage done to my new laptop? Is there any way I can prevent this update glitch from happening again? Thanks.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Windows update

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Anonymous
2010-04-23T05:50:01+00:00

Hi. I just got my new laptop yesterday with Windows 7 Home Premium. When I left for school this morning, I shut down my computer and saw that it had 22 Windows Updates to download. When I turned it back on this afternoon, it was stuck at a screen that said "Preparing To Configure Windows. Please Do Not Turn Off Your Computer." I decided to wait but it stayed the same for as long as I waited. Finally, I powered it off by holding on the power button, and just normally booted the system. Will there be any damage done to my new laptop? Is there any way I can prevent this update glitch from happening again? Thanks.

I just bought a Toshiba Laptop for a Client with windows 7 home,

As a favour for my clients I usually run windows update for them so they get it all working and are 100% confident that when they get it as up to date as possible,

I ran into the exact same problem as above, i read this thread and read all different reply's but none of them realy worked for me and i didnt have time to wait...

this is what worked for me:

  1. Hold down the power button and switch of your machine
  2. Restart your computer and just before windows boots hit the F8 button
  3. Boot into safe mode
  4. login (if nessecary)
  5. Make sure that any virus scanners at this point are disabled before continuing
  6. Click "Start" > "Accessories" > "System Restore"
  7. Click "Next"
  8. Pick an earlier restore point and then click next, (its best to pick the 1 just before you had problems)
  9. Click next and follow the prompts and it will start a system restore
  10. wait till your computer does this System Restore process
  11. Regardless of whether the system restore process fails or passes it should now get you out being stuck at "Preparing To Configure Windows. Please Do Not Turn Off Your Computer."

Now...

  1. login if required

13 Disable Virus Scanner before moving on

  1. Run windows update
  2. now it should run without any problems
  3. if you do have problems and run into a loop Call your Computer Manufacturer or the company that you purchased it off and see if they can help you,

Thanks

Michael

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  1. Anonymous
    2011-03-08T08:59:11+00:00

    I've been waiting 9 hours so far on my brand new Dell netbook (inspiron). This is not very good consumer relations Microsoft.

    It seems your estimating algorithm for working out what percentage of the installation is complete is just useless.  Fewer fancy animated graphics and some more statistical analysis required.

    Oh yes and stop treating us all as if we've never seen a computer before.

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  2. Anonymous
    2011-03-01T23:55:08+00:00

    I have tried to install Windows 7 SP1 - worked fine on my older laptop. However having major issues with my desktop PC - has been on the 'Preparing to configure Windows' screen for sometime... (about an hour) - it then loaded back to Windows however it didn't state the update was complete.

    I then rebooted and guess what... SAME PROBLEM?!?

    How do I get around this infinite loop of 'Preparing to configure...'

    This cannot be an isolated problem - why is there not an official MS update regarding this problem with the Windows 7 Service Pack 1.

    If anyone can help please... I have a legit copy of Windows which I cannot activate again if this goes all wrong and I need to reinstall everything from scratch. :-(

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  3. Anonymous
    2011-02-16T09:25:53+00:00

    Greetings

    I had exactly the same problem today - and tried the power off, take the battery out etc solutions which did not work.  However, having read through the posts here I did the Control-Alt-Delete reboot and it instantly kicked me into the logon screen, without rebooting, startup was then a little slower than normal but it seems to have worked - it reports that all the updates were successfully applied.  Looks like the thing gets stuck in an infinite loop after the update process is finished - thanks to whoever it was that found the fix and thanks to Microsoft for wasting an entire morning of a holiday week-end!  After a year you might have expected them to publish something helpful here wouldn't you?

    Not sure I believe the posters who say it is down to the anti-virus as it hangs before anything gets loaded into memory that could kick the anti-virus off.  I think people just assume the anti-virus is the problem without properly investigating

    However Windows 7 is a ____ of a lot better than Vista - and seems to be following the Microsoft tradition of releasing alternating products that work and then dont work (who remembers Windows 2000 with fond memory eh?) and getting the users to Beta test cruddy software and pay for it so maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel.  Lets hope we can hang on to it like Xp for years and years beyond teh point MS want us to upgrade!

    Hey MS wont let you put words like shell without the s - presumably they dont believe in the place - someone needs to tell the Pope!

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  4. Anonymous
    2011-02-14T18:39:30+00:00

    Interesting thread.  It's over a year old with 36,588 views as of today (Feb 14, 2011) and yet NO official "microsoft answer" or explanation as to what's happening during these interminable "updates."  Today it happened to me after doing a repair install of Windows 7.  It has been stuck at Part 1 of 3 15% for several hours and no indication whether anything is happening.  There's no disk activity.  Who knows whether to wait or reboot?  How long a wait is long enough?

    I'm going to follow one of the suggestions above: reboot ... do whatever I need to to get to the desktop ... then install the updates one at a time.

    sheesh

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