Update interrupted, restart hangs on 'Preparing Your Desktop'

[tomp]

Running Windows 7 under Parallels on Mac OSX.

The system started an update and in spite of the warning not to turn the computer off, the update got interrupted.

The restart has been 'Preparing Your Desktop' for about 2 hours with no diagnostics or any indicators.

What should I do? If I stop the restart will Windows 7 come up in 'Safe Mode'? Or what??

TIA

 

[NoelDP]

In theory, crashing the system should force it back to the previous checkpoint, and it will attempt the desktop update again. If you're lucky it will go through this time.

It may abandon the update, and roll back to the uninstalled state.
It may also refuse to boot, in which case you should have the option to do a startup repair, and use System Restore to get back to a stable state.