Infinite Update Loop in Vista

[xApachex]

My mother's laptop recently did an update, but it hasn't gotten past the point of "Configuring updates 3 of 3 - 0% .. ". That was on the 14th, and it's been restarting every 5 minutes since and hasn't finished the update. I realize that Vista sometimes restarted while updating, and it can take several restarts sometimes for it to complete. But somehow I don't think it takes this many. I can't get into Windows at all, not even safe mode. Anyway around this other then a format?

 

[SNGX1275]

Boot from the Vista dvd and restore from a restore point. If you don't have any you'll have to do a repair.

Here is an article about how to get out of it.

 

[xApachex]

Thanks. I really should've thought of this myself haha. Just had to figure which F-Key got me into the recovery partition on my mom's laptop. I was trying to delete the pending.xml file (which also should've worked) but Knoppix was being a real pain in the a.. The restore point worked though, so thanks.

To anyone who might read this and not have a Vista DVD like myself, here's a link to a download for one (if you don't know how to / or don't want to bother with trying to find the restore partition ):
http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/windows-vista-recovery-disc-download/

 

[badbigs]

the work around we have for the update issue is to do system restore and download this patch Update for Windows Vista (KB937287) after downloading this patch then you can do the updates. hope this helps also.