Windows 7 64 bit (Home?) stalled on update

On restart Windows Updates started installing. Has been sitting at update 47 of 111 for over 5 hours. Laptop has gone into screen saver, but has been running entire time.

I completed an HP System Restore about a week ago and downloaded all the Windows Updates at that time so should be coming from a pretty clean system.

HP recommended System Restore because laptop so slow at times as to be almost unusable and Hard Disk checked OK. Has been working well since then.

Programs whaich had been open were Norton 360, Microsoft Office 2010, Thunderbird Mail, Internet Explorer and Quicktax 2004. All were closed manually prior to restart. The restart was required as I had just entered the key code for Quicktax 2004. This was a program that I had not previously installed on Windows 7. No idea if this could cause a conflict with the update - just throwing out information that might be relevant.

You are probably best to reboot the machine, tap F8 key to get to system recovery options , and do a system restore to a point before the updates.

Hello Jill, welcome to Windows Seven Forums.

If you are installing updates in fully-maximised mode and the install hangs, it pays to check if there is some sort of prompt hidden behind the maximised window.

IE9 is notorious for this as shortly after the download starts a prompt will pop up asking if you want to install it, but the prompt is always hidden behind the window that has the focus.

An update can also stall if another update is in the process of being installed at the same time.

Rather than try and install 111 updates all at once you'd do better to install them in smaller batches - Net Framework updates will very often fail if they are being installed as part of a large batch of updates.

Other than that, a system restore as suggested by SIW2 is probably your best bet.

Thank you both for your assistance. I had to power off to restart, but seems to have recovered without need to use system restore

I was set up to "install updates automatically". I have changed to "Let me choose when to install".

If there are a lot of updates is there any need to install in sequence?

Or should I group by type?


Should I resubmit this question with a new title?

Grouping by type won't do any harm as won't installing a few at a time.

It can be a bit more time consuming, but if you highlight each update in turn you should see an explanation of what they are for on the right-hand side of your screen.

If there are any updates you don't want, just right-click them and choose Hide then you won't be offered them again.

Probably best to install a few at a time.

If one of them is KB982018 you might be better leaving that till last.