Question Is it possible to stop an Update? Taking too long. Concerned.

[Mugsy]

HELP!

I booted my computer this morning and seconds after Windows started, it told me I needed to reboot to complete an "Update".

I rebooted as soon as the normal Startup had completed. I got the usual Black Screen with spinning wheel telling me the update was installing, but then instead of rebooting after the usual 30% complete, it rebooted after just 20%. 🤔

When the computer restarts, I briefly get the spinning wheel (no text) and then suddenly I find myself staring at a blank screen (monitor is on & getting a signal) for a long time (I've waited up to 12 minutes before manually rebooting.)

Plenty of disk activity, but NO visual feedback. No "Percent complete" or even just a spinning Busy wheel.

The last time I encountered something like this was two years ago when some ransomware went through and encrypted nearly every file on my PC.

I had to boot into Linux (same PC) just to type this message. First thing I did was check my data to make sure nothing had been encrypted and everything appears to be okay. But I don't trust an "update" with NO visual feedback that takes this damn long.

Is there any way to stop/remove a (possibly malicious) update in process? 😳

TIA

 

[Colif]

were you on 22H2 yet?

I have had strange reactions from the last 2 windows updates I have run, so it might be "normal"
Last patch I installed sat on 0% for about 2 minutes, I got up to check drive activity light and once I sat it jumped to 6%

How long has it been? Restarting a PC that is "updating" can end badly. IE, break windows.

 

[punkncat]

Personally think I might try the "repair installation" option. My own experience shows that it rarely works out unless the issue is something fairly minor in the first place. Beyond that, if you have access to the drive and are not getting access permission issues it would probably be a good idea to harvest the info you need and perform a clean install.

Aside from that, how old is the drive and are you sure it is healthy?

 

[Colif]

If you decide to clean install and not wait:

download media creation tool (2nd link) or ISO (3rd link) and use it to make an installer on USB - https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows11

how to backup info on broken install

• on screen after languages, choose repair this pc, not install.
  
• choose troubleshoot
  
• choose advanced
  
• choose command prompt
  
• type notepad and press enter
  
• in notepad, select file>open
  
• Use file explorer to copy any files you need to save to USB or another hdd
  

follow this: https://www.elevenforum.com/t/clean-install-windows-11.99/

 

[Mugsy]

were you on 22H2 yet?

I have had strange reactions from the last 2 windows updates I have run, so it might be "normal"
Last patch I installed sat on 0% for about 2 minutes, I got up to check drive activity light and once I sat it jumped to 6%

How long has it been? Restarting a PC that is "updating" can end badly. IE, break windows.

Thx for the reply. I believe I had the 22H2 update, but can't confirm.

"Two minutes" with text reading "0%" wouldn't concern me, but 12+ minutes with a totally blank screen and lots of disk activity does.

I was quite hesitant to interrupt an in-progress update, which is why I waited nearly 15 minutes before I finally did. The fear of another Ransomware attack was a far greater concern (fortunately, this does not appear to be the case, who know knows WHAT all that disk activity is doing? (I have a Ryzen 7 5800X and M2 boot drive, so NO update should take this long.)

 

[Colif]

i have an m.2 as well, but if windows is altering things it needs to change before running anything, you best of just waiting sometimes.
Advantage to m.2 is it only takes about 20 minutes to reinstall windows at least.

 

[Mugsy]

Personally think I might try the "repair installation" option. My own experience shows that it rarely works out unless the issue is something fairly minor in the first place. Beyond that, if you have access to the drive and are not getting access permission issues it would probably be a good idea to harvest the info you need and perform a clean install.

Aside from that, how old is the drive and are you sure it is healthy?

Fortunately (???), ever since that Ransomware attack two years ago, I now back up my C: drive on the first of every month. So if I need to restore Windows, I can. I just HATE restoring a month old backup two days before I was to do the next one. So much stuff gets screwed up the longer it's been since it was created.

 

[Colif]

The last update I got updated the file exploder to add tabs, it was the slow one as i guess file explorer is fairly fundamental when it comes to programs. I have learned its best not to install updates from windows until it forces you to, Update previews can stop you getting the later update.

So much stuff gets screwed up the longer it's been since it was created.

that is same reason using System restore as a safety net is also stupid, as it doesn't know what may have been updated since last use.

 

[Mugsy]

i have an m.2 as well, but if windows is altering things it needs to change before running anything, you best of just waiting sometimes.
Advantage to m.2 is it only takes about 20 minutes to reinstall windows at least.

Once bitten, twice shy.

Only my C:/Boot drive is backed up. If something malicious is going through my other drives, I can't take the chance of "trusting" a suspicious update and just letting it run. 🙁

 

[USAFRet]

Only my C:/Boot drive is backed up. If something malicious is going through my other drives, I can't take the chance of "trusting" a suspicious update and just letting it run.

3-2-1
3 copies, on at least 2 different media, at least 1 offsite or otherwise inaccessible.

 

[Mugsy]

Unfortunately, we're talking about 5 Terabytes of data here. I don't have another drive to backup that much data to), and even if I could use a cloud it would take a month for me to upload that much data. 🙁

 

[Colif]

I doubt you can get a virus or anything like that from windows update.
I guess its possible if you are infected... but if you already infected, I suspect they wouldn't get files from windows update. or need to.

So I think its possibly just a broken update, that happens... but I doubt it was intentional

 

[Mugsy]

I have my doubts "Windows Update" is performing this "Update". It's not behaving like any other MS update I've ever seen.

If it's not possible to disable/delete/interrupt whatever is trying to install, I may have no choice but to install that month old backup (ugh!)

 

[punkncat]

Having ANY kind of update program in use is far better than a high percentage of PC users. Most folks don't do anything, have a drive crash, virus, and so forth THEN ask what can be done.

I don't keep much by way of "critical" backup anymore. I got tired of lugging around TB of data that the reality was I was using so rarely as to make it functionally lost to me anyway. Silly me digitized most of my music to get rid of CD's and then some years later I just turned around and put them back on DVD as a physical backup anyway. I use a system similar to what @USAFRet mentions above but have my "critical" storage down to less than 1TB now.

 

[Colif]

restart PC and roll back to previous update.

Windows update should be finished by now.

If the windows update servers got infected, I expect we would know by now. It would be in the news, people screaming about it. I expect the security on those servers is pretty solid as every hacker on earth would love to be able to get an infection onto those servers. and infect the world.

Silly me digitized most of my music to get rid of CD's and then some years later I just turned around and put them back on DVD as a physical backup anyway.

i have all mine on a 256gb USB drive, as well as backed up on Onedrive.