Windows Update always takes all day, multiple sessions, holding PC hos

I always dread when Windows 10 has updates. Every time Windows 10 has updates, Windows always holds my PC hostage until ALL and I MEAN ALL updates are fully installed. Until all updates are fully installed, Windows will heavily limit my PCs performance until literally every update is 100% installed. Even if all updates are downloaded and all Windows 10 is waiting for is a PC restart, the fact that there are updates pending, Windows 10 will constantly freeze and lag until all updates are fully installed. And when I mean all updates, if one update fails to install, even if it is something super simple and small, Windows 10 will hold my PC hostage until it is installed.

Also, Windows 10 will take all day through multiple sessions to install updates, even for very small updates. It will never install them all in one go. I am finding that I have to restart my computer upwards of eight times before all updates are installed. It will take anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour to install updates every time I restart. If I am lucky, it will only require three restarts before everything is installed. But it usually takes at least five restarts before everything is installed. Windows will hold my PC hostage during this until literally everything is installed. As I said, it will take anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour PER restart with "Getting Windows Ready". "Working on Updates", and "Installing Updates" after every restart.

After all updates are 100% installed, my computer usually runs smoothly and is fine after that—but until then, my computer is always unusable.

Today is no different with Windows Update, I am already on my fourth restart and have been waiting for roughly 45 minutes now on this restart "Getting Windows Ready". It is 2:50 PM EDT and I have been dealing with today's Windows Updates since 10:45 AM EDT. This goes to show that Windows Update is taking its time, refusing to install all updates in one go, and holding my PC hostage in the process. I had to make this post on a Windows 7 machine as a result because my Windows 10 machine, an HP 17 j177nr, is out of commission for these blasted updates. I am sure it will be fine like usual after everything is installed, but until then, it is a real big hassle.

When I have things I NEED to do on my computer, I cannot wait for 6+ hours and restart my computer a dozen times when there are important things I need to do.

Why does Windows Update do this? Why does Windows hold my PC hostage until every update is fully installed? and why can't it do everything in one go? Why does it require at least five sessions before everything is installed? Is there a way to make it not hold my PC hostage when there are pending updates?

- - - Updated - - -

Update: Now it seems that today's Windows Update bricked my computer. After over an hour at "Getting Windows Ready", it went into "Restarting" and it sat at "Restarting" for more than 20 minutes. So I did what Google told me to do and that was hold the power button for 5-10 seconds to shut off the laptop.

But when I turned the laptop back on, now it ALWAYS gets stuck at the HP logo with spinning dots and it never moves beyond that. The hard drive activity light shows no sign of utilization. It is a solid white light. Usually when there is hard drive activity, the light is rapidly blinking. The Ethernet port lights up every so often.

It is obvious that the updates today caused my PC to not be able to boot. This laptop worked fine before Windows had updates. Installing these updates have now seemingly bricked my PC.

Does Microsoft not test these updates?

I do not know where you are getting that I have an Intel Atom with 2 GB RAM. I NEVER said anything like that! I SAID I had an HP Envy 17 j177nr. Those things come shipped with 8 GB RAM and a Core i7 with 8 CPUs. Mine happens to be upgraded to 16 GB RAM.

It sat at the HP logo for an hour before moving on but I am now up to seven restarts with "Getting Windows Ready" after every one. If it goes past eight restarts, it will be a new record for a Windows Update session.

It seemed okay after the sixth restart—albeit only after killing the "Windows Modules Installer Worker" service which seemed to have been stagnet running at 0% CPU and utilizing 56 MB RAM with no sign of activity. Usually when there is activity, CPU and RAM usage numbers are constantly changing, which was not the case for "Windows Modules Installer Worker". After killing the process, my computer seemed fine until I ran Final Fantasy XIV and two minutes in, HARD FREEZE with buzzing sound,will not unfreeze, MUST power off machine. I have ONLY ever had that happen a few times while streaming on Facebook Gaming. This was the first time it did this when I was NOT streaming.

Of course, as soon as the PC booted up after that, "Getting Windows Ready" for the umpteenth time! and Windows is still holding my PC hostage so apparently there are still updates not done.

I run SFC /scannow and DISM on a regular basis, nearly once a week. On Monday SFC /scannow told me "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations" which is what I receive pretty much every week when I do the scan. I just did SFC /scannow just because you said to and it still told me "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations"

I tried going into settings>check for updates and there was an error there saying that updates could not be installed and it gave an error code "error 0x800706be"

A Google search for 'Windows Update error 0x800706be' only brought up outdated 2016 results. Nothing recent.

About an hour ago, I clicked "Retry" and now update KB2267602 has been stuck "Downloading 100%" for about an hour now and it is NOT moving onto the install phase.

Also there is another update listed "KB5023695" and that one has been stuck "Installing 0%" for nearly the same hour duration. It has stayed at 0% for nearly an hour and the percentage refuses to go up.

At the same time, Windows Update continues to hold my PC hostage as there are still updates pending.

I'll be shocked if Im not headed for the same situation, as I'm attempting to FINALLY update an old but robust dell desktop (T5400 with two quad intel CPUs - 8 cores total) which currently has multi-year-old win-10 version 1909. So of course the update, downloading and verifying were multiple hours just for that, before that actual restarts began. I really don't expect it to apply everything needed to get to the so called "final" 22H2, but I figured I'd try. I was actually happy with my 1909 version, but having just completed and tested multiple working system drive clones, I figured I have nothing to lose but time. But whatever happens, I'm saying all this to remind everyone two things. First, if you NEED to have your computer, its very wise to clone your system drive before any major windows update. Few things guarantee a return path like being able to swap out your system drive for a clone known to be working and very recent. Second, a second machine is not that big an investment, especially if you rely on your computer for a lot of daily work or even hobbies. You can get a win-10 or win-11 Dell laptop on ebay for barely $100. Maybe not a powerhouse, but enough to serve as a substitute during an update that could potentially take days to complete, and work out all the problems.

Edit: So after a full day, and after the final restart, my machine is still at 1909, with no explanations. Maybe there's a log somewhere explaining what went wrong, but it just shows that all the pre checks windows does to "ensure" an update before trying it don't mean "dilly squat". Anyway, I was happy with 1909, and I'll be satisfied with it on this machine. If anyone knows a way I could find out why the massive update failed I'd be interested to know. But anyway, at least it didn't take days.

Anyway, this is an old thread, but maybe I'll update it tomorrow when all the dust settles from my update attempt. Going from 1908 to the latest will probably take as many restarts as there were interim versions, so as Microsoft aptly says, "this will take a while"

Ornithophilia said:

I do not know where you are getting that I have an Intel Atom with 2 GB RAM. I NEVER said anything like that! I SAID I had an HP Envy 17 j177nr. Those things come shipped with 8 GB RAM and a Core i7 with 8 CPUs. Mine happens to be upgraded to 16 GB RAM.
.

CPU: Intel Atom CPU Z3740 1.33 GHZ
Memory: 2GB
Graphics Card: Intel HD Graphics 1030MB

Is what you've stated in your computer specs, that's generally what people look up before they offer help.

PeterPan2000 said:

I'll be shocked if Im not headed for the same situation, as I'm attempting to FINALLY update an old but robust dell desktop (T5400 with two quad intel CPUs - 8 cores total) which currently has multi-year-old win-10 version 1909. Maybe there's a log somewhere explaining what went wrong, but it just shows that all the pre checks windows does to "ensure" an update before trying it don't mean "dilly squat". Anyway, I was happy with 1909, and I'll be satisfied with it on this machine. If anyone knows a way I could find out why the massive update failed I'd be interested to know. But anyway, at least it didn't take days.

Anyway, this is an old thread, but maybe I'll update it tomorrow when all the dust settles from my update attempt. Going from 1908 to the latest will probably take as many restarts as there were interim versions, so as Microsoft aptly says, "this will take a while"

Hi, as this is a separate system and will likely result in a long thread, please create your own new thread with a title mentioning ugrading from 1909.

The logs are widely reported.. you can easily find mention of those in tenforums or generally on the internet.

There are basic measures to take- uninstall security software, ensure you have at least 30GB free on C: .

Check the integrity of your system - disk (Crystal Diskinfo), chkdsk c: /scan, sfc /SCANNOW

Sometimes an in-place upgrade repair install of the same major build (1909 in your case) can help.

setupdiag.exe (free from MS) tries to analyse the update logs and match against some known cases.

Exact technical diagnosis of upgrade failure can be lengthy and arduous.

When you post, list exactly all the checks you have done including the above, and post a screenshot of the partitions on all your disks using Minitool Partition Wizard (free) - not Disk Management.

Precisely and exactly state the text of any error message you see.

Note that there's a better chance of success if you
- download an iso file
- disconnect from the internet
- rt click the iso file, mount it
- open new drive letter created
- double click setup.exe