Crashes during updates.

crimson said:

This is the exact same thing that happened to me on Vista. I thought it was the OS. That is why I switched from Vista back to XP. But Windows 7 does the exact same thing.

When I run Windows Update, it goes to a splash screen saying that updates are being installed. I then get an error:
"Failure configuring Windows features. Reverting changes. Do not turn off your computer."

It just does this loop forever making it completely impossible to get into my system. When this happened with Vista, there was nothing I could do. I just formatted it, and went back to using XP whose updates work perfectly fine. With W7, the first time I did updates, everything went fine. Then last week, I updated it, and it gave me this error again. But why?


This error happened to me both for Windows 7 64 and Vista Ultimate 64. Everytime I run Windows Update, it does this which completely crashes my system. Now I have to format, and install XP.

The Vista crashing after updates problem was related to installing updates with more than 2GB memory installed. That problem was fixed by simply installing Vista SP-1 right after you install Vista but before you download or install any of the updates.

What might help is to sort through the updates and only allow Windows 7 to download a few of the required updates at a time rather than trying to get them all at once.

You may also be able to figure out which update is causing the problem this way by downloading and installing them one at a time.

If you don't need the language pack update than just don't allow Windows to download or install them.

This procedure also helped with Vista if you didn't have SP-1.

Actually, the Vista I installed at first was Windows Vista Ultimate 64 SP1. I got it March 2009. I installed it clean. As usual, they force you to create a main-user during setup. As soon as setup was complete, I rebooted. On my first boot, I immediately logged off of the main-user, and logged on as administrator. I then deleted the main-user in Computer Management. Then I configured the network. The next thing I did after that was run the activation validation. Once all of that was complete, I rebooted.

As soon as the computer rebooted, I went straight to run Windows Update. That's when it crashed on me as described above.

With Windows 7, I went through the exact same proceedure in May when I downloaded the RC 7100. Windows Update went perfect. I cursed Vista, and praised W7. When the updates were complete, I shut off automatic updates. Last week, I finally decided to run another update for W7. I hadn't updated it at all since I installed it back in May. I chose the whole heap of updates that were available, and commenced the process. And low and behold, my computer crashed the exact same way as it did with Vista.

crimson said:

Actually, the Vista I installed at first was Windows Vista Ultimate 64 SP1. I got it March 2009. I installed it clean. As usual, they force you to create a main-user during setup. As soon as setup was complete, I rebooted. On my first boot, I immediately logged off of the main-user, and logged on as administrator. I then deleted the main-user in Computer Management. Then I configured the network. The next thing I did after that was run the activation validation. Once all of that was complete, I rebooted.

As soon as the computer rebooted, I went straight to run Windows Update. That's when it crashed on me as described above.

With Windows 7, I went through the exact same proceedure in May when I downloaded the RC 7100. Windows Update went perfect. I cursed Vista, and praised W7. When the updates were complete, I shut off automatic updates. Last week, I finally decided to run another update for W7. I hadn't updated it at all since I installed it back in May. I chose the whole heap of updates that were available, and commenced the process. And low and behold, my computer crashed the exact same way as it did with Vista.

I've seen it happen before so your not the first, as I mentioned before, try only allowing one or two updates at a time to download then reboot after they install, repeating the process until you have the ones you need. Also there is no need to get the language pack updates if you don't need them.

Getting them all at once seems to cause problems for some. The same procedure has also worked with Vista in the past.

OK I'll try the trial/error thing. Is there no actual solution pinpointing the source of this problem?

Ya I wasn't sure if my Anti-Virus was interfering this time. But this crash happened with Vista before installing any Anti-Virus. I have Defender and Windows Firewall disabled.

I installed the retail W7. I ran updates, and it didn't crash. Even with security software installed and everything.