Windows Vista "Forever Loop" Fix.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

From DU'er paupau:

“Configuring Updates Stage 3 of 3 0%” Vista forever loop cure

“Configuring Updates Stage 3 of 3 0%”

Use your OS disk to access the Vista repair tools.

Even for those without an OS disc, Vista has repair tools built in.

To access them, boot the computer, but when you see the “Microsoft (C)” with the moving lines, hold the power button until it shuts down.

Now windows thinks it didn’t boot properly, and when you turn it back on, you should get the option to run Windows Startup Repair.

Choose this. When it loads, cancel the scan it starts (it won’t find anything anyway), and choose the text on the bottom that says something like “Show advanced repair options.” which should get you to a command prompt option. (Some folks are saying that it asked for the user, and they changed from the Administrator to their user account in order to get access to a few more tools, including a command prompt where you can run fixes).

You can also get to a command prompt via holding down, or repeatedly clicking, F8 as the computer begins its reboot. - select safe with command line.

note that this may take a few runs through the reboot F8 routine as my initial runs still ended up with the forever loop. Which is why the OS disk route - if your machine came with or you later bought such a disk - is preferred. If you are lucky ebough to have a restore point established, that option appears to work on a little less than half the machines I've run into.


Once you have the command prompt the need is to remove a file “pending.xml” that is causing the forever loop

Instead of deleting the “pending.xml” files from the c:\windows\winsxs folder I renamed it, so that it can be put back later if needed.

This seemed to do the trick for me. But if it still hangs on "Stage 3 at 0%" with reboot and hang again forever cycle continuing, just do a repeat of the F8, and select safe mode w/networking. Stage 3 may well continue and finish normally (it didn't for me) but in any case after the second "safe" reboot a boot to normal windows was possible for the folks I was helping.

Any lawyers looking for names for the class action lawsuit against Microsoft can contact me for a few. This was an "automatic update (the default choice when Vista is installed) process" - so no one did anything to mitigate MS's liability - there was no download of beta, or RC1, software initiated by the owners of these machines. Norton/avg anti virus may - or may not - be a factor as MS is indicating the Vista SP1 (which is what MS shoved out the door) "breaks" a few non-MS programs despite MS giving them a Vista certification.