"Preparing to configure Windows...."

[(PeteCresswell)]

...."Do not turn off your computer.

I went to re-boot my VAIO and this message pops at boot time.

I suspect I may have fat-fingered an "Install Updates" prompt...
last time I shut down.

Dunno if it's really hung, but I tried leaving it up for over an
hour and no change.

Anybody been here?

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per (PeteCresswell):

Dunno if it's really hung, but I tried leaving it up for over an
hour and no change.

Anybody been here?

FWIW, I tried to re-boot into "Safe" mode by pressing F8 and
choosing "Safe Mode" from the resulting character-based screen.

Once I did that, Windows threw a screen about
"Repairing...(something-or-other)."

After "Repairing..." ran for a few minutes, the machine
re-booted, and now I'm back to "Preparing to configure WIndows.
Do not turn off your computer."

Now that I'm looking more closely, somebody's doing a sort of
mini-marching-ant thing with the period after "Windows"... not
really marching ants, but it moves right one character at a time
for 3 characters total and then does the same backwards...
over-and-over.... so the thing's probably not hung.

It's been a little over 10 minutes so far, and think I'm just
gonna walk away and leave it for a few hours.

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per (PeteCresswell):

Anybody been here?

I guess so: http://tinyurl.com/8kn52o3

One guy had to let it run overnight... but, in the end, it
finished and booted the rest of the way.

 

[Joe Morris]

..."Do not turn off your computer.

I went to re-boot my VAIO and this message pops at boot time.

I suspect I may have fat-fingered an "Install Updates" prompt...
last time I shut down.

Dunno if it's really hung, but I tried leaving it up for over an
hour and no change.

Anybody been here?

Yup.

At my shop (supporting ~7000 systems) we've seen that with some consistency
ever since we started the transition to Windows 7 back in 2010. We've never
been able to pin down what's causing it - I strongly suspect there's a race
condition involved, perhaps involving Symantec's AV program - but the
instructions I gave the help desk to give to users calling in (and published
in our self-help web server) is that if you see the message with no
percentage figure for more than about a minute, forcibly power down the
system and restart it. On restart you'll see the Registry journal being
rerun (less than a minute) after which the system will pick up where it left
off.

We've never seen any problems that we can attribute to this procedure.

Joe

 

[...winston]

Sounds like you may have interrupted (fat fingered ?) a .NET update during the Shutdown prompt
- common occurrence (possibly not for yours) for many who force a quick shutdown by holding the power button for more than 4-5
seconds instead of allowing Windows to manage the shutdown (and/or restart)
--
....winston
msft mvp mail


"(PeteCresswell)" wrote in message
Per (PeteCresswell):

Anybody been here?

I guess so: http://tinyurl.com/8kn52o3

One guy had to let it run overnight... but, in the end, it
finished and booted the rest of the way.

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Joe Morris:

At my shop (supporting ~7000 systems) we've seen that with some consistency
ever since we started the transition to Windows 7 back in 2010. We've never
been able to pin down what's causing it - I strongly suspect there's a race
condition involved, perhaps involving Symantec's AV program - but the
instructions I gave the help desk to give to users calling in (and published
in our self-help web server) is that if you see the message with no
percentage figure for more than about a minute, forcibly power down the
system and restart it. On restart you'll see the Registry journal being
rerun (less than a minute) after which the system will pick up where it left
off.

Tried that once. Maybe the second time will be the charm.

I think you can cross Symantec's AV prog off the list bc I use
Avast and Symantec's never been installed on this sys.

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per (PeteCresswell):

Maybe the second time will be the charm.

'twas.

"Failure configuring WIndows updates.
Reverting changes.
Do not turn off...."

Seems tb back to normal.

 

[Joe Morris]

I think you can cross Symantec's AV prog off the list bc I use
Avast and Symantec's never been installed on this sys.

Thanks for the data point, although we may have been seeing the same failure
symptoms but the cause was different. In our shop I've not seen the problem
systems *not* recover cleanly on the first reboot. This isn't a frequent
issue, but it happens frequently enough that I put the guidance into our
RightAnswers database.

And we have had a couple of incidents involving Symantic AV...not
necessarily the fault of SEP but it's got hooks in odd (and poorly
documented) corners of the system, and can step on *other* programs that
also hook into the kernel, such as Checkpoint FDE and Citrix XenDesktop.

Joe

 

[charlie]

Thanks for the data point, although we may have been seeing the same failure
symptoms but the cause was different. In our shop I've not seen the problem
systems *not* recover cleanly on the first reboot. This isn't a frequent
issue, but it happens frequently enough that I put the guidance into our
RightAnswers database.

And we have had a couple of incidents involving Symantic AV...not
necessarily the fault of SEP but it's got hooks in odd (and poorly
documented) corners of the system, and can step on *other* programs that
also hook into the kernel, such as Checkpoint FDE and Citrix XenDesktop.

Joe

I've run across this behavior on exactly two machines.
One, a HP Laptop running Vista Ultimate (two core processor), and the
other a win7 Phenom II x4 P/C.

In both cases .net plus updates to it were the ultimate culprit.
One of the systems had later .net releases, but the early ones were not
present. The other had had parts of the .net software removed as part of
an attempt to determine what was slowing the machine down, sometimes to
a crawl.

The Phenom based system was time consuming to diagnose, due to the
number of updates that were involved, and "hanging".

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per (PeteCresswell):

'twas.

"Failure configuring WIndows updates.
Reverting changes.
Do not turn off...."

Seems tb back to normal.

Nope.

Apparently-normal boot, but when I shut down and re-started again
it went back to the original state. Left it overnite, but it
was still there in the morning.

Tried rebooting to "Safe" mode again, got
"Failure configuring WIndows updates.
Reverting changes...."

and then it re-booted on it's own again, finally arriving at what
looks like a normal Windows desktop.

Did yet another shutdown followed by a start, got a rather long
"Welcome" splash, but then it went to a normal desktop.

Went to do a Start | Shutdown | Restart and AnVir popped "58 new
startup items found!". I guess that was an artifact of some
industrial-strength messing about with the registry...

Then Windows threw "Install updates and shut down"...

"Uhhhh... I don't *think* so.....".

Not being a total masochist, I changed the selection to "Shut
Down" and then took an image of the system after the subsequent
startup.

Then I went re-booted, and went back to accept the dreaded
"Install updates and shut down", which put me back to the
original "Please do not power off or unplug your machine.
Installing update 1 of 13".

Let it run it's course and the machine did shut down - apparently
normally bc the "Shutting Down" splash appeared and shortly
thereafter, power cut. This would be the second iteration of
this sequence of events.

Next reboot saw a repeat of "Applying.... of 5,404..." (which I
did not mention on one of the previous go-arounds), followed by
the same-old-same-old "Preparing to configure Windows. Do not
turn off your computer."

Oh well... At least now I have an image that will boot, and if
I re-image from it, the PC sb useful long as I don't apply any
updates.

Sheesh! Heaven forbid I should need this laptop for to do my
job.