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We've all been there. You're installing a new major system for a client and you're finishing up with installing all required updates and this happens.
Image taken from petur.eu
Or, more specifically, this is the one I am seeing right now (sorry for the German):
The message is pretty clear. Do not power off or unplug your machine!
But I have been looking at this screen for 2 hours now and I begin to suspect that whatever is hidden behind it, failed.
So, what is the right thing to do in this case?
Der Hochstapler
Posted 2012-05-12T13:59:04.443
Reputation: 77 228
I think we should petition Microsoft to include an "I don't have time for this" button, that is active after it starts the update cycle -- in case it is taking longer than you had expected. – nobar – 2015-08-28T18:49:50.373
4Its a VM, hard reboot it. worst case scenario you get to reinstall Windows. More likely is that Windows will recover and avoid any damage – Akash – 2012-05-12T14:03:04.307
3@Akash: I have a hard time accepting that reasoning ;) I may have just spent 48 hours installing this machine and configuring critical services on it. Yes, worst case is a reinstall, but that's a pretty major worst case. – Der Hochstapler – 2012-05-12T14:06:35.107
4Well, you have two choices. Either leave it there for the rest of time, or decide how long you are will to wait before pulling the plug. Obviously the longer you can wait before you pull the plug, the safer your strategy is. – Robin Gill – 2012-05-12T14:09:57.987
@RobinGill: That's what I usually do. Which is why I was wondering if there might be a different approach that just never occurred to me. – Der Hochstapler – 2012-05-12T14:15:25.063
You can try to tell the machine to turn off, e.g. by using shutdown -a on another pc, but if it has hung it probably won't do much. I have some machines I look after which use Kaseya for remote administration - using this I could terminate the relevant processes remotely and see if this helps, but this would probably be pretty much just as bad as pulling the plug so I don't bother. – Robin Gill – 2012-05-12T14:20:36.180
4This is an impossible question to answer. What can you do when you cannot turn off the machine? Well, you could play pool. Or go shopping. You've already postulated you can't turn off the machine. And of course the worst case scenario - you may need to reinstall - NEVER goes away. The way to deal with that may be to create an image so the process can be automated and repeated. But you can't ever expect to eliminate the root cause. :) – The Dag – 2012-05-12T14:30:06.857
I've been forced to pull the plug in the past (left it on overnight!). There have never been any issues and I've always just rerun the update before shutting down. Of course, nothing as major as a service pack. I've learnt to install all updates before shutting down (automatic updates off). Worst case, startup repair + system restore works. – Bob – 2012-05-12T14:30:18.907
@TheDag: If there simply is no better practice to handle this then I'm ready to accept that. But then at least I know I'm not acting irresponsibly. – Der Hochstapler – 2012-05-12T14:32:39.427
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May be this is what you are looking for microsoft answer.
– avirk – 2012-05-12T14:41:32.927@avirk: Pretty good information. Thanks. If you want to make an answer out of it, I'd appreciate it. – Der Hochstapler – 2012-05-12T14:44:03.187
1BTW, is there ANY HDD or processor activity going on? – Akash – 2012-05-12T15:01:59.057
@Akash: I already rebooted the machine (it wasn't critical in this case). But I usually keep an eye out for HDD activity. – Der Hochstapler – 2012-05-12T15:07:11.567
I've had this issue whilst installing Windows updates and left it on over a weekend... it actually timed out and rebooted itself after 12+ hours. There was a message in the system event log along that it had "timed out". No other problems and the remaining updates were later installed without issue. – MrWhite – 2013-03-10T00:06:28.873