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

I ran into the same problem today while installing the Security Update for Window 7 (KB2286198) on a PC running Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit. The download completed and the PC restarted and was then stuck on the Preparing to Configure screen ... After a while I left my PC and returned about an hour later. I noticed that the animated circle was not moving and there was no Hard drive activity ... also there was no mouse pointer so I hit the reset button on the PC. When the PC started up again I selected the Start Normally option and then the updates were installed and the Preparing screen was shown for a few seconds before the PC started up correctly.

I will join the others.. same issue on a custom powerful desktop.

Win7 64 bits.

The disk activity light when hung is basically not doing anything just a fast flash maybe ever 10 seconds but is just normal background while not actively doing anything. Win might be just dealing with RAM (8 mb) but not for like 10 hours last time.

Last two updates just now and a few weeks or month ago.  Last time let it run all night and still hung on "PREPARING" to configure..with warning not to shut down.  But useless hung and have a 20mb cable connection so  it has to be Win not time to download (which I believe it already had done).

On reboot fortunately seemed ok  First said installing like 12,000 updates does very fast.  Continues to start slower than normal.  But all loaded fine..

Checking updates needed only shows 1 critical related to Silverlight. 35 optional but they are all for foreign languages I don't speak!

Looking in history shows 2 installed when it hung - a Security update for 64 bit Win 7 and update of Windows Defender which I don't think I every use .. don't even know what it is, use ESOT NOD and Malewarebytes for anti virus etc.

OK update for Silverlight installed without needing reboot.

So bottom line is bailing out of being hung seems to not have interfered with updates.  While prior time it hung for about 10 hours, this time I gave up after about 30 minutes since with no disk activity per light and prior problem I took the chance since I need to get work done!

I just got a new ASUS laptop running windows 7. Im not very good with his technical stuff but i do know there are some serious issues with windows 7. I think XP was even better than the ____ i've been going through the last few days. The first 2 days were fine, but after that every time i attempt to shut down, it wants to update. It wants me to do 17 updates, and it only ever makes it to 4 of 17, even after leaving it on all night. I began doing manual power downs because the laptop wont do sh** by itself. I've been exploring websites for answers and I discovered that in Internet Explorer, in the safety list there is an option to do a windows update. This is where I choose to update and I had to attempt it at least 4 times but it really does take patience. It took almost an hour and a half to do the updates from there but it ended up being successful. I have not restarted yet in fear that it will try to update some more after me choosing to shut down but maybe this can work for you as well.  Just try to update from the internet explorer and have patience, although i know it is very hard to. The windows configuring issue I havent gotten much but I hope by manually initiating the updates that it will prevent this from occuring. Also, I find everything that i try to update/download takes quite a bit of time, I still havent been able to install my latest Java update. However I will execute this process once again in hopes of the same outcome. I was wondering however, do your programs often stop responding even at the slightest glitch? This keeps happening to me...sorry for the long post. I'm very frustrated, I can only imagine how everyone else feels. Hopefully this can help somehow haha.