Preparing to configure Windows for over an hour

Hi folks,

Win 10 desktop. On shutting down, I got the message 'Preparing to configure Window Don't turn off Your computer' for over an hour now. No sign of installing anything - no progress percentage, only HDD activity.

Apologies for not posting the pc info but I can't get access to that right now but I know it is running 22H2

The system is regularly updated, last update was sometime last week, so I can't see why it is taking this long as it may only have one or two updates to process.

Is the update stuck - is it safe to power off - or should I continue to leave it to do its stuff? If so, for how long?

Cheers

Art

Hi, if it is updating... then wait. You can 'break' your O/S (as it usually warns as you know) if you interrupt it mid update.

Of course, if you have a recent 3rd party disk image you have that security- you do, I hope?

Noting that you have Pro: you can take control of updates very tidily by setting updates to 'Notify' in Group Policy.
That way no Windows update downloads until you approve it, having received notificaition there is one.

As for restarts due to updates- there are tutorials about taking some control of those too.

Very occasionally a few people have to wait a strangely long time- even hours.

Eventually you'll have to decide- and if you do power down, it's a risk... hence the disk imaging recommended so often...

I guess the build number under your avatar is out of date...

dalchina said:

Hi, if it is updating... then wait. You can 'break' your O/S (as it usually warns as you know) if you interrupt it mid update.

Of course, if you have a recent 3rd party disk image you have that security- you do, I hope?

Noting that you have Pro: you can take control of updates very tidily by setting updates to 'Notify' in Group Policy.
That way no Windows update downloads until you approve it, having received notificaition there is one.

As for restarts due to updates- there are tutorials about taking some control of those too.

Very occasionally a few people have to wait a strangely long time- even hours.

Eventually you'll have to decide- and if you do power down, it's a risk... hence the disk imaging recommended so often...

I guess the build number under your avatar is out of date...

Nope - it was a different machine (my 'backup' if you like).

The info under my avatar is for my primary machine (now updated - build number was 19044.1766 now 19045.3448)

I was aware of the risk of bricking the pc if I turned it off and it was genuinely updating and not just stuck in a loop. I have a copy of the installation on a separate HDD which I occasionally swap out and update.
It has finally finished whilst I was in the shower so at least 90 mins updating.

I'll power it on and pop the details here (including what it was doing for the last 90 mins) in case others come across this!

Desktop PC: DELL Vostro 200 / Pentium Dual Core E6600 3.06GHz / 4Gb RAM / Integral V2 240Gb SSD (159Gb free)
OS: Windows 10 Home version 22H2 build 19045.3488

Last update: KB5031356 (failed with error code 0x80010108)

Previous update: KB5031224 on 15/Oct/23 (succesful)

I'll try reinstalling that update after a clean boot.

UPDATE: Yep, the cold boot sorted it - updated within around 10 mins including KB5031356 and KB5011048

Art

And thank you for your reply.

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