Eager to play a game yesterday, I decided to click the Stop button when performing a Windows update. Big mistake.
You think Windows would bow out of an upgrade gracefully. After all, there’s that damn button sitting there, which you can click and which supposedly stops the upgrade in progress.
Granted, clicking the button did stop the upgrade. It “failed,” according to the log. But the computer started acting hinkey, so I restarted the beast.
After looking at the “Starting Windows” screen sit still for 40 minutes, I decided that there was a problem. So I restarted the computer again.
Windows was self-aware after the second restart, and asked me if I wanted to enter the Repair Windows option. I did.
The Repair Windows screen sat there for 30 minutes.
SIDEBAR: Whenever the computer is busy, it’s tradition that it display a “busy thing,” which shows you that the computer is, indeed, still alive. Well, basically:
Busy Things Lie.
They’re just animations. They play no matter what. There is no actual activity associated with most progress bars and spinning doo-dads. They’re just animated image files that play over and over regardless. The computer could have twenty dozen threads spinning in infinite loops, and the busy thing keeps on spinning. It’s a lie!
END SIDEBAR
Eventually I restarted the computer again, this time stabbing the F8 key to enter Safe Mode.
Safe Mode ran just fine, so I knew it was some other problem vexing the PC.
Restarting the system again brought it up. Yeah! But several programs failed to run.
Two more restarts, and an attempted System Restore, failed to fix things.
Finally, I had to re-install the Java SE thing (whatever it does), and that finally brought the computer back to the same state it was in before.
The icing on the weirdness cake is that it turns out the Windows Update — the one I attempted to abort — did, in fact, install. That must have been the odd thing that caused the PC to go down.
Anyway.
Word to the wise: Don’t stop a Windows update, even though there is a button there claiming you can do just that.
I think this could be quite a common thing to do stopping updates. When I first got a PC with XP I couldn’t undestand why it was taking ages to close down. There were loads of updates pending. SO I turned it off, big mistake it would not start properly again I had to reinstall windows after that. Recently a friend did the same thing to her Laptop not understanding why it was taking so long to close down, and now there are lots of nice error messages popping up. Even though it does say not to turn off your computer while updates are running I feel it is not very well exaplained what it is doing and why. Causeing impatient people to flick the power switch.
Comment by chiefnoobie — April 8, 2011 @ 1:46 am
Which begs the question: If the “busy thing” lies, then how can you know whether the computer is actually installing an update or that it’s dead?
Comment by admin — April 8, 2011 @ 5:10 am
What game were you going to play that was worth wasting your whole day troubleshooting?
Comment by gamerguy473 — April 8, 2011 @ 6:20 am
My sons were over and we were going to do the new Black Ops Nazi Zombies level, Ascension. You need four people to work the puzzle and unlock the easter egg. It’s very complex, and we almost had it: At level 19 I went out to get a Max Ammo perk and we all went down. We were one task away from completing the puzzle. Took about two hours. Very fun.
Comment by admin — April 8, 2011 @ 6:32 am
I too have made the mistake of stopping a windows update midstream (Windows 7 on a desktop). In my case, I stopped it and went back the next day to finish the install. However, that particularly update and also every subsequent update just sat at 0% progress forever. Fortunately rolling back to a previous system restore point fixed it.
I’m still having a similar problem where any update to any version of the .NET framework on my Windows XP laptop just sits with the progress bar halfway finished but never completes. I’ve given up on that one.
It’s surprising how weak the windows update mechanism is at recovering from unexpected events given how flawlessly Ubuntu updates usually go, even when I do have to stop them (or they crash) halfway through.
Comment by JohnnyK — April 8, 2011 @ 11:31 am
Oh, well, let’s no go comparing Linux and Windows! That’s such an unfair fight!
Comment by admin — April 9, 2011 @ 12:58 pm
at least it’s not the egg timer you see any more! Now it’s a shiny circle makes waiting so much more fun!!
Comment by chiefnoobie — April 11, 2011 @ 1:28 pm
Troubleshooting? I love it. Nothing is more satisfying than blasting that troublesome device full of holes with the firearm of your choice.
Comment by linuxlove — April 11, 2011 @ 6:08 pm