Windows 7: Computer froze, force restarted, now message saying "cleaning up"

I woke up this morning to find my computer was frozen. So I forced it to restart by holding down the power button. Once it was booting back up I walked away from my pc for an hour and when I came back it just has a message saying "Cleaning up... Do not turn off your computer." It has been like this for over 4 hours.



What causes my pc to go through this cleaning up phase and how long does it take?
Also is it safe to restart my pc at any point if this takes way to long?

Thanks.

Frozen, but booted and inside Windows?

From the way you phrase the question, I assume this freeze did NOT happen when you started--your PC was already running and it froze when you woke it out of a sleep state?

It may be running Windows Updates or a checkdisk or ?

I'd leave it overnight at least if I could stand it

do you have win 7 sp1 installed? if not windows update may have installed it and is doing it's cleanup after.
or i guess it could be other windows updates.

scrooge

Sorry I should have phrased it better. My pc was left running over night and when I went to use it, it was frozen at the desktop. After restarting it the pc it is at the "update looking" screen with that messag displayed in the center of the screen.

*edit*
Yes I already have sp1 installed.

I'd leave it alone overnight, particularly if you haven't had any Windows Updates in quite a while.

Well that ruins my plans to play Skyrim on my day off . Thanks for the advise/help tho .

Is there any activity (e.g. flashing HDD light or sounds)?

Do you have the Windows 7 install/repair disc?
You could use it to apply your last "System Restore Point".
Legitimate updates normally create a "System Restore Point".

It seems like there is some activity.

No I don't havehe disc... I actually left it in another country >.>

In that case, you should probably let it run for a while to see if it can finish what it is doing.

You can access System Recovery Options also by tapping the F8 key at boot, run Startup Repair if it won't boot.

You'll also have access to System Restore on that menu, as you can see by clicking on the blue link.

If you don't have the Repair console on F8 menu, try Last Known Good Config.

Let us know how this proceeds.