Windows 7 Stuck in "Failed to configure" restart loop

roustabox

New Member
Joined
Mar 3, 2016
Hi,

my Windows 7 installation is stuck in a "Failed to configure" loop.
It started on Monday when, while turning off Windows, it displayed "Installing update 96 of 127" or something like that, which was odd, since I used this machine on Thursday and Friday and it already had installed updates. It just started with 96 for some reason. It took quite a long time but after that it was finished.

When the laptop rebooted it said that it was configuring and after a while it displayed the "failed to configure" message which stayed for over one hour. After that the machine rebooted again and the same thing happened again.


I tried several solutions.

I moved C:\Winodws/winsxs/pending.xml to another location (the file "cleanup.xml" doesn't exist), which didn't help.

I normally boot Windows from GRUB and so I put the Windows drive on the first position in BIOS but that didn't help.

I followed all the steps in a superusercom thread, which had me doing "dism /image:C:\ /cleanup-image /revertpendingactions", "DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RevertPendingActions" and "SFC /SCANNOW /OFFBOOTDIR=D:\ /OFFWINDIR=D:\Windows" in recovery mode but none of it helped.

There are no previous points form which I could restore the system so that is also not an option.

There is also the "Windows Update Troubleshooter" but it is not possible to execute it in safe mode.

Are there any other solutions I might have missed?

[edit]
Just to be clear: I cannot log into Windows, only into Safe Mode and into the recovery console.
 
Hi,
if you have a installation disk you could try booting from it but when getting to the install page click 'Repair' instead.
 
Unfortunately I will not have an installation disk for the foreseeable future, i.e. the next few months.
 
You could also try booting into the advanced boot options by pressing F8 whilst booting and trying 'Last good known config'
 
You could also try booting into the advanced boot options by pressing F8 whilst booting and trying 'Last good known config'

I tried that option but unfortunately the same thing happens again, it just gets stuck in the update loop.
 
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