Windows 7 crashes when updating any software

Hi,

Windows continues to try and update but the problem i'm having is it continues to crash and often attempts to shut down but never gets past the shutting down screen. It has even gone on over night without turning off. I always have to manually shut it.

Please help

Thanks

 

Greetings, superxabi14, and welcome to MajorGeeks.

A few quick questions:

1. Is the machine experiencing any other problems when running normally? Does it crash when it's not trying to update Windows?

2. Does the machine run normally when booted into Safe Mode?

3. Which updates are causing the problems?

4. Have you tried reverting to an earlier time via System Restore?

 

Hi Caliban, thank you for the greeting. My replies are below:

1. Is the machine experiencing any other problems when running normally? Does it crash when it's not trying to update Windows?
It is very slow and sometimes does not even get to loading Windows in normal mode. When updating other software like Avast it just freezes.

2. Does the machine run normally when booted into Safe Mode?
It does now but previously i had problems with it only showing icons and no text. I rectified this by doing a system restore to the earliest point where i can login to Windows.

3. Which updates are causing the problems?
Mainly the Windows update.

4. Have you tried reverting to an earlier time via System Restore?
I have but the problem keeps on recurring.

 

Almost sounds like you might have multiple problems going on. Let's tackle the slow load first:

Click Start, type msconfig and press Enter. When the System Configuration utility loads click the Startup tab and you will see a list of (mostly) 3rd-party startups. Disable anything that does not seem vital to the operation of the machine - practically everything on that list is unnecessary. Be advised that avast! and any other protection software is controlled by this list, so you should disconnect from the internet while testing.

With everything disabled Ok out of the SysConfig utility and restart the machine into Normal Mode. If you note a marked improvement then you can repeat the process and selectively enable the startups until you find the culprit(s).

 

Having unticked everything the computer loads up at normal speed fine into Windows and shuts down ok.

However when i attempt to shut it down when attempting to update Windows the whole thing freezes on the 'installing updates 1 of 30' screen. It does not move on at all from this when left for a while.

 

I think you need to narrow this down first, find the 3rd-party startups that are causing Windows to load slowly and run slowly. It would seem that the best course is to have a normal Windows platform running smoothly before assaulting the updates problem.

Try to find out which 3rd-party programs are causing the Windows load problems and eliminate them, or at least keep them from starting when Windows starts.