Windows 7 Update stuck at 35% after disk cleanup

I did a disk cleanup on my W7 pro desktop yesterday and did a system files cleanup.

When I shut down the computer at the end of the workday, I noticed that the screen said it was doing a windows update.
So I left the computer and went home assuming it would shut down on it's own as it always does when I see the windows update message.

When I came in this morning I started the computer up and the screen came up saying it was doing an update and it was at 100%.

I got tired of waiting and so I rebooted and then it came up saying it was at 35% and it stayed there a long time

Doing a google search showed others having the same issue after doing a system file disk cleanup
Most of the solutions I saw said to do a restore

Going into the F8 menu and choosing any one of the safe mode options goes right back to the windows update 35% screen

I can't even get to the command prompt to do anything so I am stuck here

I also saw several post on the web that said to just leave it and it will update some day

Currently, I have it booted to safe mode with networking hoping it will update some day. It's been an hour or so and nothing.
I do see a tiny bit of disk activity via the LED, but not a bunch.

This is a 8 core AMD with 32gb of ram and a SSD, so it is a pretty fast computer.

This is my business computer and I am having to use a vintage notebook to try and limp along at my business until my Desktop is back

Is it correct that I just have to wait and some day the computer will snap out of it?

Any help is appreciated
Thanks

Ok, no sooner did I finish the post above when the desktop snapped out of it an went to my desktop in safe mode

I re-started and it booted up normally
So booting into safe mode with networking worked for me
It took almost 2 hours to snap out of it

Just leave it alone and wait seems to be the ticket
Hope this helps someone else in the future

Experienced this issue in February 2020. Wanted to thank this user as running the DISM command solved my issue.

HOWEVER, I wanted to note, if you have multiple drives on your machine, the C: drive during normal operation may not be the C: drive during command prompt.

In my case I had to run

Code:

DISM /image:D:\ /cleanup-image /revertpendingactions

Also to note, you can launch the command prompt by tapping F8 during boot and selecting "Repair my computer" --> get through the selection of keyboard/user --> Select command prompt

In other news, never ever ever ever run windows disk cleanup

a15995 said:

Hello!


This may be an old post but I experienced this issue in December 2019. It appeared after a disk cleanup. I checked a massive Windows update cleanup of 24 GB which took forever for Windows to complete.


After that I ended up getting stuck at the 35% mark.


Left the computer for an hour and turned power off. Same issue at reboot. I have a speciel setup (Users on another drive) which renders system restore unusable.


So basically I was stuck and trying to avoid using an older backup.


I booted a recovery disk, opened a dos prompt and entered this command:

Code:

DISM /image:C:\ /cleanup-image /revertpendingactions

And guess what - Windows booted with a screen saying "Reverting pending actions" instead of getting stuck. All was well.


But, Windows disk cleanup (Windows update cleanup) is buggy and left me with a lighter system, but a system where Windows Update continues to think that IE11 isn't installed. And leaving you stuck at boot for - at best - hours.


Hope this helps someone getting stuck...