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

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!

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

Yesterday I was a proud recipient of a Dell Precision running Windows 7 Professional. We had held on to XP as long as we could, and since I needed a replacement computer, we opted to let me be the office guinea pig for Microsoft's new OS. I had no complaints. Windows 7 had different ways of doing things, but none that were a significant departure from XP. Today I installed applications we use beyond Microsoft's business suit and rebooted. Big mistake. The system informed me it was installing sixteen updates, but on restart it has put me into "Preparing to configure Windows" purgatory with no one to offer prayers for my speedy removal.

This, suffice to say, is not good. Double plus ungood, if you like. But, things like this is why I get to be the guinea pig, where we can evaluate packages before adopting them through the workplace.

As it stands now, I cannot recommend Windows 7 for our company.

Let me say this again, on the off chance that someone in Microsoft is monitoring this board. I cannot recommend Windows 7 for our company. We cannot afford the downtime involved. We need something that works.

I hate to say the "L" word, for some are quick to invoke Linux and Mac whenever there's mention of Windows problems. For what it's worth, I tinker with Ubuntu at home, and while Linux is less of a hassle than in years past, it has its own quirks. But so far Ubuntu hasn't wandered off to gaze at it's navel while I stare at "Preparing to configure Windows." Right now Ubuntu and WINE are looking mighty interesting, and I think it would be a good project to try on an older computer.

Angry? No. I simply can't recommend an OS that leaves users twiddling their thumbs for hours on end.

Pass this up the chain, Microsoft reader. Maybe someone higher up will pay attention. If not . . . well, it's not written in stone that a PC must run Windows, or any Microsoft product at all.

thanks JC NZ!  CTRL-ALT-DEL worked like a charm!

=j=