Windows 7 - Windows hangs While Installing Updates

Hi,
Last night I received a message that Windows needed to download updates. There were seven of them, so I clicked on install. After downloading it said it had to restart to complete the installation. I then got the screen saying "Configuring Windows. Do Not Turn Off Your Computer." The little circle kept spinning for about a half hour. I saw that the HD light didn't come on at all, so I assumed it had locked up. I had to press and hold the power button to get it to reboot, and after telling me Windows did not shut down normally, it started up and appeared to complete the update installation.

I checked the Update History and most of the updates said "Successful" but a few said "Pending".
I have had this lockup happen before, but usually it installs with no problem. What can I do? What does Pending mean? I am not tech oriented. I have Win 7 - 64 bt - Service Pack 1. Thanks. Tom

Some updates take longer to install ...you should leave it untill it finishes ..

BTW ..just run wds update again ...see if the pending ones show up ..then install them ..this time .be patient ..

Thanks for the help.
Shouldn't there be some sign of HD activity while it's configuring? The fact that I didn't see the hd light come on once and it took so long is why I thought it froze. Next time I'll let it keep going. Thanks again, Tom

Depending on the update, the inital extraction of files can be quite lengthy - and you may not be looking at the HD light at the right time. I've known it to be a couple of minutes between brief flashes of the light (depends a lot on the speed of the machine, and what else is going on). There's a lot of stuff that goes on in the background as the system first reads a section of the file, then expands it, and decides what it needs, then how to properly install it. In a system with a fast hard drive but a lot of stuff running in the background, you may get a 0.5 second HD flash, followed by apparently nothing for another minute or so.
Next time try looking at the Task Manager - The TrustedInstaller may be using 90%+ of the processor to check the file integrity. or actually supervise the install (which is often actually done by the msiexec.exe program)

Thanks, Noel.
Tom