Member Avatar for AJM056

Hi ,
On the weekend I was updating my sisters Toshiba notebook, which had been off the Internet for about a year. After updating anti virus & and other security programs, Vista updated itself.
After downloading all the new updates it shut itself down and proceeded to load the "3 critical updates".

Now all it keeps doing is restarting the PC and "loading update 3 of 3". Then repeating the whole process. I've tried starting in safe mode, last known good configuration, and all the other boot options, teh update keeps happening no matter what I do.

Any ideas?

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Dani AI

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reported the machine is caught in a persistent "installing update 3 of 3" reboot loop and Safe Mode / Last Known Good didn't break it; suggested using the Vista recovery media. Below are concise, low-risk offline actions to try from the Vista Recovery Environment (Command Prompt) before resorting to a full reinstall or image restore.

From the recovery Command Prompt, try renaming the update "pending" marker and clearing the Windows Update cache (these stop a stuck update from being retried):

cd /d C:\Windows\winsxs
ren pending.xml pending.old

rd /s /q C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download
chkdsk C: /f
  • Renaming pending.xml prevents Windows from repeatedly trying to finish a corrupt pending transaction.
  • Removing the Download folder forces Windows Update to redownload packages cleanly.
  • Running chkdsk checks the file system before rebooting.

If that does not work, edit the offline registry to remove any leftover RunOnce entries that can force repeat jobs (use regedit from the recovery environment: select HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, File -> Load Hive, pick C:\Windows\System32\Config\SOFTWARE, give it a temp name, navigate to ...\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce, delete offending entries, then Unload Hive). Back up the hive first.

If the drive contains important files, copy them off before aggressive fixes (use the recovery Command Prompt, a Linux live USB, or remove the disk and attach it to another PC). After recovering boot, run Windows Update again and reinstall/disable third‑party security software temporarily while updating to avoid repeated interference.

If these steps fail, a repair install (in-place upgrade) or restoring from the vendor recovery partition are the next practical options.

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Member Avatar for Suspishio

Might be that you need to turn off anti-virus. Can you load in safe mode and do that?

Member Avatar for AJM056

No I can't get past the updating screen, even in safe mode

Member Avatar for Suspishio

Boot from Windows DVD and repair from there?

It gets messy if you have to work in DOS to edit the registry and take out the RunOnce entry (if that's where the update is).

These problems are very hard to solve.

Member Avatar for Suspishio

I forgot to mention, that if you boot from the Vista DVD, you can go back as many restore points as necessary to the position before your windows update.

Member Avatar for AJM056

That's a good suggestion I'll give that a shot.

Thanks

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