Windows 8 Computer stuck on "Failure configuring Windows Updates, reverting changes. Please do not turn off your computer"

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Joseph Kingham

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Jul 21, 2014
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Late last night (around 10:30pm) my computer was updating 0 of 97 updates. This took approximately 2 hours 35 minutes. After that it restarted and the message
"Failure configuring Windows Updates, reverting changes. Please do not turn off your computer" appeared.

I was really furious because I have never experienced this with my 1 year old computer before and was really worried. Later in (about 40 minutes) I decided enough was enough, so I turned it off by the power button. I know I know it was probably bad to do this, but at the end of the day it was never going to move.

Now I returned It back on this morning (8:30am) and the same message appeared. Can anyone tell me how to fix this please, ad arty for the long message :/
 
Solution
R
my computer did the same thing but it took about 3 hours for it to restart.

I found that if you have a lot of updates to do... Do them all at once, however make sure you have a strong internet connection. Make sure they all download and are ready to install before restarting your computer.
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instead of applying all the updates in one go, open the list of updates, untick all of them

Then tick the first 15 or so and try and install them

If that works, just keep repeating the process until all of the updates are applied
 
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my computer did the same thing but it took about 3 hours for it to restart.

I found that if you have a lot of updates to do... Do them all at once, however make sure you have a strong internet connection. Make sure they all download and are ready to install before restarting your computer.
 
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Solution
i have the same problem , i bought the first laptop in 3rd of october, than it start to failure in configurating, i bought it bach to the shop ,they gave me another one, and not in even 2 day the same problem again, failure to configurate. i cannot pass from that stage, its completle stuck.
 
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I just had the same thing happen to my PC, I am in the middle of trying to fix it, if I can figure it out I will post here.

You can hold the power button until the computer turns off then when restarting press F8 and follow the trouble shooting guide.


 
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I have had the same problem for days
New laptop two says old
Stuck on windows update 1-61
Tried Allsorts power on off changed the bios
Finally come down to pluging it in to the router via Ethernet cable 20 minutes of it resetting it's self
It's sorted it's self
Unbelievable
 
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I had this same problem. Solved it after 5 hours of torture. This solution will not work for everyone, but IF YOU HAVE AN EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE, read on.

What windows does when it downloads updates (before installing), is to choose which hard drive has the most space, and dump 'em all there. If you have an external hard drive (plugged in VIA usb or something), it puts them on the external. What can often happen is that the files get corrupted or halfway unfinished because the external gets plugged in and out a lot. And then the computer tries installing updates, fails, and gets stuck messing with your external hd. Nobody even knows that the external is being touched by windows usually. But often you will see strange files in your external drive, stuff like "3952_1689756_MVM_0.tmp" , a whole bunch of these, on there. Those re actually windows update files.

ANYWAYS. Here's what to do.

1. Wait until windows 8 shows you the blue screen again. Then press "turn off computer". If it doesn't do this after you wait a long time, just hold down the power button.
2. Unplug your external HD. Disconnect it from the computer completely. Disconnect any USB hard drives or flash drives.
3. Turn on your computer again and it should show the blue screen again, or it should try updating and reverting again. If you see the blue screen, press "start windows 8" and let it try to revert again. If it just starts reverting again, let if finish. After this step, either your computer SHOULD BE FIXED ..... OR you will see the blue screen again. ):
4. If you see the blue screen again, press the advanced options button and then go look through until you see the "system restore" button. Click it and select and older point of your system. Then go restore it. This can take a good 2 hours .. be patient.
5. Try starting your computer up again after system has been restored, and it should revert and be okay.

6. LAST RESORT. If nothing else has worked, try navigating through the advanced options menu to "refresh your PC". This will delete all your programs, but keep files intact. It will definitely fix the system issues.

A final note: This is coming from a developer. I do not actually recommend installing windows updates unless you're desperate to try and get to windows 8.1 (you wierdo). Windows updates aren't like linux updates. They don't ever add anything useful to your PC. In fact, many of them add clunky backend processes that slow it down. Want to never see a goddamn update trying to shut down your computer in the middle of your work ever again? Go to Control Panel > Windows Update > and check "never check for updates".
 
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Windows 8.1 is wasting hours of my time with failed updates. They should spend more money fixing their sory system instead of so many commercial s saying how good windows 10 is going to be.
 
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My customer had an HP desktop.

I chose the smallest update and got error 800f0922
This error led me to disable HP's Secure Boot in the BIOS.
The one update succeeded after that and after reboot the other 83 updates volunteered themselves unbidden.
Fortunately the changes did NOT revert so the 800f0922 secure boot disabling solution appears to potentially solve the "Revert Changes" problem too.
 
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I'm in the middle of this now, but after the original loop of the "Failure configuring Windows updates. Reverting changes. Do not turn off your computer" error message it's since froze on Please Wait and now Restarting, I suspect it will be in a loop with that as well.
 
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Only solution I found is to do updates in groupings of 5-10 at a time, the problem seems to be, it tries to apply an update that's reliant on another updating happening first and rather than failing a few of the updates, it just reverts ALL the updates. Really Really stupid.

Only way around it is to just jump to the Windows Store and apply Win8.1 directly. I didn't do that because I wanted to keep all my files/programs, apparently doing the 8.1 update before getting all the 8 updates will have you lose some programs/files, but if you have them backed up that might be the better option and just reinstall.
 
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ok. i am somewhat computer savvy. but not. well, lets just call me rusty cuz i haven't used the knowledge in a long time so i lost it somewhere in my crazy head =) how to i even get past the "reverting changes"? I have started in "safe mode" etc but the darn thing just keeps going back to that. how do i get to the update screen. which "f" button do i push to keep the stupid thing from going into reverting changes? thanks
 
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fyi.......when this happened to the 2011 laptop, i had the OS reinstalled back to factory. as soon as i downloaded the virus software, added a few things to the navigation bar & adjusted some of the display settings it went right back to the same thing. I was informed it was the motherboard. apparently there is a problem with hp laptops doing this after so long & hp is refusing to label it a defect or malfunction so they don't have to repair them. =( ended up buying a desktop this time.
 
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I am having the same issue with it undoing changes, I am using windows 8.1 x64,

I am left with 2 updates after a few hours of trying to install the over 20 I started with that wouldn't install together,

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
please try this first and let us know if you have any luck, it could make the process quicker for others,

(C:/Windows/SoftwareDistribution/Download) - Delete all files in this folder.
removes downloaded windows updates, some may be corrupted,

change windows update settings to (Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them.(this is to stop windows installing all the rest on restart, which will again fail to update)

check for updates and remove these from the selected updates list before installing updates,

Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer 11(KB3139929)
Security Update for Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.2(KB3135994)
Update for Windows(KB3121255)
Update for Windows(KB3121261)
Update for Windows(KB3123242)
Update for Windows(KB3125210)
Update for Windows(KB3126030)

hopefully your updates will be successful and you can move to step 5.
if your updates fail and are undone again, please follow the steps below to see if it helps get some updates installed, if not all.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What I did,

I decided to install a bit at a time to find the cause of the issue,

I 1st deleted any downloaded updates to be sure there is no corrupted windows updates waiting to be installed,
(C:/Windows/SoftwareDistribution/Download) - Delete all files in this folder.
I delete these after every failed attempt.

I then changed my update settings to :- Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them.(this is to stop windows installing all the rest on restart, which will again fail)

1. - I selected (internet explorer updates, Adobe and Net.framework updates, etc.(no windows updates))
I restarted after install and after the usual blue screen saying Undoing changes, internet explorer and Net.framework 4.5.2 failed, security update for Net.framework 3.5 and adobe flash succeeding and no longer on the update list,

2. - I selected all (security update for windows),
I restarted after install and it completed the updates and started normally, all installed successfully,

3. - I selected all (update for windows, 12),
I restarted and I got the blue screen saying Undoing changes, after i run check for updates again, 2 updates were successful, 10 remain,

4. - I selected the bottom 5 (update for windows)
I restarted with all updates successful,
my internet security also found and blocked intrusion attempt from (\DEVICE\HARDDISKVOLUME4\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\WSCRIPT.EXE.)
wasn't a problem before the update, thanks Microsoft,

I then tried to check for updates and windows could not search for updates, (Error code 80244019)
I deleted all in (SoftwareDistribution/Download) and checked again, 7 updates remain.

5. - after several attempts to install the remaining updates without any success, I resorted to installing 1 by 1, here are the results.

5.1 - Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer 11(KB3139929) - FAILED
5.2 - Security Update for Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.2(KB3135994) - SUCCEEDED
5.3 - Update for Windows(KB3121255) - SUCCEEDED
5.4 - Update for Windows(KB3121261) - FAILED
5.5 - Update for Windows(KB3123242) - SUCCEEDED
5.6 - Update for Windows(KB3125210) - SUCCEEDED
5.7 - Update for Windows(KB3126030) - SUCCEEDED (no restart required)

I then tried the 2 Failed updates again - FAILED

I hope this helps others, I am left with 2 updates that won't install, I will solve these in time,

Don't forget to change your windows update settings back, Good Luck.
 
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