Before you start: If the percentage has changed at all in the last hour, it isn't stuck — leave it. Big feature updates on an older machine genuinely take two hours or more.
Steps
- Note the percentage, then walk away for an hour. Come back and compare. Moved? Keep waiting.
- Same number after a solid hour (two if it's the big yearly update)? Hold the power button until the machine switches off. Wait 30 seconds, turn it on.
- Most of the time it will either finish the update on the way up, or say Undoing changes and take you back to Windows as it was. Both are fine.
- Once you're at the desktop: Settings → Windows Update → Check for updates and let it try again, plugged in, with nothing else running.
- If it fails again with an error code, note the code down (a photo on your phone is fine) — it tells me exactly what's wrong.
If that didn't work
- If it loops — update, restart, undo, update — three times, stop. There's an underlying problem (usually low disk space or a damaged system file) that's quick to fix on a visit but tedious to guess at.
- If instead of Windows you get a repair screen, follow the won't start guide.
When to stop and call
It loops more than twice, shows an error code you can't get past, or the machine is more than a few years old and this keeps happening.
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