Freezes at Windows loading screen.

[Blitz11]

The Story :
I worked out of the country for a year now that I am back I turned on my gaming PC and started downloading all sorts of updates. I left my PC to dl everything over night. In the morning I turned on the monitor to find it frozen only completing 1/3rd of the updates. After a forced shut down every time I start it back up it freezes while loading windows.

Details:
I boot off an SSD. It was near full when my updates started. Could the fact that it's maxed out keep me from booting ?
It's not any nonessential drivers. Windows 10 btw

Any help!?

 

[jojesa]

Make sure Windows is actually stuck.
Some Windows updates can take hours to configure or install, so you want to make sure it's stuck before trying to fix a problem that doesn't really exist, which might just create big problem.
It could be that your computer went to sleep and the update resumed when you waked up the PC in the morning.

Boot Windows into Safe Mode.
Browse to the C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution folder, and delete all its content.
Delete the file pending.xml located in the C:\Windows\winsxs\
Type %TEMP% on a Windows Explorer and delete all folder content.
Reboot.

 

[dlevns]

Make sure Windows is actually stuck.
Some Windows updates can take hours to configure or install, so you want to make sure it's stuck before trying to fix a problem that doesn't really exist, which might just create big problem.
It could be that your computer went to sleep and the update resumed when you waked up the PC in the morning.

Boot Windows into Safe Mode.
Browse to the C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution folder, and delete all its content.
Delete the file pending.xml located in the C:\Windows\winsxs\
Type %TEMP% on a Windows Explorer and delete all folder content.
Reboot.

It works!

I had to login and register as a user here to reach out to you and say thank you!! I have been fighting with this issue for the past week and was hours of shy of wiping my disc clean and doing a fresh install. I just found this post, followed your directions above as much as I could as I could not login to Windows in anyway, but did have have access to a Windows 10 bootable USB drive to access command prompt. After deleting everything in the software distribution folder, I rebooted and to my amazement I have my computer back!

My problem began with the May/June 2019 windows 10 updates. They were a nightmare, but I’m back to my pre-update computer and is flying along without a hitch. Again, thank you very much for posting this solution!

 

[Dreamus]

Just wanted to say thank you so much jojesa been troubleshooting this for the last few days with constant freezes at start and pulling my hair out. Your solution solved it for me so thank you so much! Time to test the limits of my new PSU and GPU!