"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
    2012-01-20T16:44:59+00:00

    This worked for me too!

    OK, at 10 hours I finally lost patience. Hard reset ... asked it to start normally ... laptop went straight to the "Preparing to configure ..." screen - however lasted only a few seconds, then "Updating Windows ... " and (hey!) - a progress indicator. Eleven updates then applied in a few seconds. And all is now well. Lucky?

    So - in my case the update process had actually hung - the animated cursor does not indicate that anything is actually happening. Given the speed, it looks as if some of the updates had been applied (in the background) and these were not undone by a hard reset. YMMV!

    Same for me. I did a hard reset after waiting long enough, then selected "Start Windows normally" when it said the computer hadn't shutdown properly. When the "Preparing To Configure Windows" screen appeared again, it started configuring the updates and the whole thing took only a few seconds. So, for me too, it was just stuck.

    I've had this Win 7 computer for a couple months and never had a problem installing Windows updates before today... I was doing a total of 10 updates this time.

    I probably won't do any more updates from now on, unless Microsoft acknowledges the problem and fixes it.

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-01-03T17:25:30+00:00

    It is not always true that Windows Update creates a System Restore point. It is recommended that you check your System Restore settings before every Windows Update to ensure that, as a minimum, your primary drive or partition (usually C:) is protected.

    Regards,

    ishmo

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  3. Anonymous
    2011-12-30T06:23:29+00:00

    Thanks.  I did what you said.  Let's see if it fixes the problem.

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  4. Anonymous
    2011-12-30T06:05:04+00:00

    Looks like this is the answer.

    Go to registry HK_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Control and remove trustedinstaller from PreshutdownOrder entry (double click this entry and delete the words from it). Might as well remove wuauserv. These don't help no one so far as I can tell. I do all updates manually. :-)

    Worked for me just fine.

    Michael

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