vm will not start new install

Question

VM will not start a brand new install. Says Updating, then Stopped

Answer 1

@John Muller Thank you for reaching Microsoft QnA platform

Please confirm whether the VM is stuck on using Boot diagnostics

In the Azure portal, open the VM and go to Help > Boot diagnostics to view the screenshot + serial log, which is the recommended way to diagnose boot/start issues.

Reference: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/boot-diagnostics-for-virtual-machines-v2/

If Boot diagnostics shows Windows Update screens (“Installing updates…”, “Undoing changes…”, etc.)

1. Leave the VM in this state for 8 hours (updates/rollback can take time). Reference https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/azure/virtual-machines/windows/troubleshoot-stuck-updating-boot-error
2. If it’s still stuck after that, restart the VM from the Azure portal and check if it boots normally.

If restart doesn’t help, use Microsoft’s supported offline method to remove the problematic update package: (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/azure/virtual-machines/windows/troubleshoot-stuck-updating-boot-error)

1. Take a snapshot of the OS disk.
2. Attach the OS disk to a recovery VM, bring the disk ONLINE, note the drive letter containing \Windows, and then run DISM commands to list and remove pending packages.
3. Then detach the OS disk and recreate the VM and validate the issue is resolved.

Try the commands below:

dism /image:<DriveLetter>:\ /get-packages > c:\temp\Patch_level.txt

dism /Image:<DriveLetter>:\ /Remove-Package /PackageName:<PACKAGE NAME TO DELETE>

If the issue isn’t Windows Update, it likely happened during new VM creation.

Microsoft groups these failures into two types: provisioning failures, where the VM starts but Windows or the OS image fails to finish setting up, and allocation failures, where the platform can’t provide the requested VM size or capacity.

To see exactly which one occurred, Microsoft recommends (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/azure/virtual-machines/windows/troubleshoot-deployment-new-vm-windows) checking the Activity Logs and Deployment Operations, which show the precise reason for the failure.

If the VM resource shows Failed (control‑plane state) If the VM is stuck in a Failed state,

Microsoft’s (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/boot-diagnostics) supported action is: VM > Support + troubleshooting > Redeploy + reapply > Reapply (re-runs VM provisioning to clear failed state)

If you’re facing persistent access/app issues, Microsoft supports Redeploy, which:

1. Shuts down the VM
2. Moves it to a new node
3. Powers it back on (retains configuration/resources).

Note: Microsoft warning: after redeploying, temporary disk / ephemeral disk data is lost and dynamic IPs can change.

If you have any further queries, let me know

Regards

Himanshu Shekhar