Stuck on Getting Windows Ready

Roark Holz 41 Reputation points
2021-05-23T12:41:07.993+00:00

Earlier this morning a installed updates on our Windows 2016 Server and it came right back up. Then I installed some updates on the Hyper-V server it runs on and I needed to shut down the 2016 Server while I let the hypervisor reboot. When I went to shut down the Windows 2016 server it went to "Getting Windows Ready, Don't turn off your computer". It has been there for about 45 minutes now. It makes no sense because it had just finished installing updates and had rebooted. I am desperate to get by this because I need the server to restart but don't have any idea what it is doing or how long it's going to take or if it's stuck. What can I do in the situation? Microsoft's take on this that it's ok to put users in this situation with no feedback whatsoever is frustrating to say the least. How dangerous would it be for me to go ahead and shut the machine down anyway? How long do I wait before I assume I have no other choice? How can I get any idea of how far it is through the process?

Windows Server 2016
Windows Server 2016
A Microsoft server operating system that supports enterprise-level management updated to data storage.
2,370 questions
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  1. Dave Patrick 426.1K Reputation points MVP
    2021-05-23T12:48:28.93+00:00

    It has been there for about 45 minutes now

    I would have restarted it about 20 minutes ago. Sounds like you have no choice.

    --please don't forget to Accept as answer if the reply is helpful--

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  1. MikeD 11 Reputation points
    2022-09-15T06:20:20.827+00:00

    I know this is already over a year old, but I just had this happen on a 2016 server.
    I rebooted it 3+ hours ago and when I used a VMWare console to see what it was doing it displayed the "getting windows ready" message.

    I spent about 15 minutes reading about others who were stuck on this message and after about 15 -20 minutes of me reading posts about this the console started showing a % complete for updates...

    Its really strange that the updates did not complete/start before I started the console session...

    The updates, once they started took less than 2 minutes and now I can access the server without any issues remotely...

    This really should be embarrassing for a company that makes billions a year that they cant get updates to work flawlessly when opensource OS's had this working decades ago.

    I almost felt embarrassed posting this, but seriously, if it's still happening - MS obviously doesn't have their shit together.

    2 people found this answer helpful.
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  2. Roark Holz 41 Reputation points
    2021-05-23T13:26:07.133+00:00

    I went ahead and shut it off, it came right back up. Thank you for your help.

    1 person found this answer helpful.
  3. Roark Holz 41 Reputation points
    2021-05-23T12:50:54.693+00:00

    It makes me nervous to just shut it down because of the "Don't turn off your computer" message, is that normally safe?

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  4. Dave Patrick 426.1K Reputation points MVP
    2021-05-23T13:03:41.41+00:00

    It makes me nervous to just shut it down

    Then you can try leaving it overnight. There's really nothing else to do.

    --please don't forget to Accept as answer if the reply is helpful--

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