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

Well, this WSIF (Windows Software Installation Feature)-related issue seems to be somewhat caused by third party drivers installed on the OS.

I've had installed Windows updates and hotfixes before installing any driver and I didn't have noticed this problem therefore. So if you want to install Windows MSU packages on a Win7-based 64bit machine which has 3rd party drivers installed, a reboot after each MSU installation (even if it's not necessary) is required to prevent the computer to hang during installation. This is a temporary solution until a WSIF hotfix for Win 7 x64 comes into surface.

AFAIK, Microsoft has released 5 patches for the Windows Software Installation Feature for Vista a couple of years ago. Perhaps the folks at M$ will launch a similar hotfix for Windows 7 which definitely eliminates these system hangs.

The answer seems to have been found; but the above, sorry, was temporary.  It did stop the repeated efforts to update; but they started again.

The problem was likely caused by failure of a tiny piece of brittle plastic that was supposed to keep the LAN network cable stuck into the back of the computer! The plastic bit was no longer attached to the cable plug when the LAN connection, on the back of the computer, was checked. That computer's connection to the Internet was faulty; it even started to occasionally refuse to connect to the modem; so physical cable-type connections were checked and found to be the most likely cause of the problem

The connection to the Internet, after writing the above, ran into serious trouble; 50% packet loss doing a trace-route, for example; lots of waiting and/or failures-to-connect. Neither the laptop, by comparison, nor another computer Wi-Fi linked, had any problems at the time, with connecting to the Internet.

Replacing the cable fixed the packet-loss problems...and all other problems connecting that computer to the Internet. A cable almost breaking away, but still connecting (but not pressing contact-to-contact as much as it should) can/does cause intermittent connection problems, obviously.

Windows 7 has in the Control Panel, a log of updates installed.  Checking that showed that, for the last week or so, lots of updates failed; and, yes, they were tried again, repeatedly, during that time.  Occasionally an update did get through; but there was a perfect list of updates that were being attempted, again and again.

The Windows 7 non-stop update repeats (for every reboot and every shut-down), was different from XPPro successfully updating, every day, the same thing (same numbers every time). My XP update-repeat problem was anoying; probably based on a software problem; but the Windows 7 wasn't a Windows 7 problem (Windows 7 did a perfect job of keeping trying to connect and update).

After replacing the cable, and manually checking for updates, they got in quickly, without errors.

We had problems, for a while, connecting to the Internet using a 5 years old wireless modem on XP and Windows 7 but especially Windows 7 (ok for five years; very bad on Windows 7).  That was replaced by a new wireless N modem; no more problems connecting to the Internet by Wi-Fi (and it works through a couple more brick walls compared with the g modem). The shop said that the old modem would have been the cause of the Windows 7 Internet failures; and replacing cured the problems

It's Fixed!!!

Perhaps it heard me while I was posting the above on my laptop, hoping that by the time I got back to the desktop it would have stopped updating "...do not turn off.." update installation and finally either started of shut down (whatever it was doing when I gave up waiting and got onto this forum).

The only difference was that before Windows 7 was given a password to start, I clicked on the red arrow-buttong thing at the bottom right-hand side of the screen, and shut it down without letting it finish starting. The next time it started, no updates!  It has been shut-down-restarted twice, ok, in a row. Since the problem has gone away I don't know how to reproduce it (and don't want to) to check if this method works. Shutting down by power-off didn't stop the repeted updating on both startup and shut-down.

Again: when the thing finally gets around to asking for a password, shut it down, instead (that's what I did, as best I can remember). For the first time, in many days (and many starts/shut-downs on those days) Windows 7 has booted and shut down without trying to install "1 of 3" updates.

"...1 of 3..." has been delaying my Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit new computer, for at least a week, every time it shuts down and every time it boots.  I'm seriously tired of it installing updates that never get finished.

My laptop, running Windows XP Pro, had virtually the same problem; that was fixed by refusing to allow the particular update.  !!#KXX "security"! Sometimes this type of bother seems worse than the sum of over 20 years of having the occasional virus. I'll try some of the answers in this forum, starting with perhaps identifying the offending update... I wonder how many days of wasted time this problem will take to go away.  Going back to a previous version might rewrite the stuck flag or whatever is refusing to consider that the update might have happened...but that doesn't prevent the trouble coming back later if the reason for the trouble isn't found and prevented from being the inevitable fate of the OS.

I'm very glad for the forum, though. Past experience with paid Microsoft "help" was an expensive huge waste of time (and they kept the money!).