"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
    2010-09-19T20:41:06+00:00

    Thank you. This worked for me too! :-)

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-09-30T00:13:55+00:00

    I have the same issue and successfully took the hardware reboot option, which produced the same message after booting, except that this time a progress indicator was also showing. It stayed stuck on 0% for a few minutes and then the desktop appeared. All seems to be OK so far.

    It's this kind of basic issue that makes me wonder whether Microsoft software engineers are awake. It's not just sloppy programming but there also seems to be a lack of motivation to fix the problems. I'm sure glad I'm not on a mission to Mars with Microsoft software running the ship..."Preparing to configure Windows..." just as you're in critical descent to the red planet. Oh er...first you reboot then press F8 and and then boot in safe mode...blah-dee-blah...boom, mission terminated. Come on Microsoft, many of us are doing critical jobs and we need FAST and RELIABLE software (why do I even need to say this after 30 years of user feedback?). Bugs and glitches are understandable given the complexity of coding, but there is no excuse for not offering the right advice in a timely way and and not releasing a fix at the first opportunity.

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-10-04T00:52:24+00:00

    "...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!).

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  4. Anonymous
    2010-10-04T01:30:38+00:00

    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.

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