Windows 10: Update taking over an hour?

Before I went to bed, I clicked to shut off my side computer (OS: Windows 10), and saw "Update and Shut down" as an option so I clicked that and went to bed. I woke up 8 hours later about 7pm, and I turned on my side computer and saw "Working on updates 0%". It has been over an hour now and it is very very VERY slowly climbing, is at 49% now.

Is this normal?

Possibly related issue: I had an issue a few days ago where I saw "Restoring to previous" version which freaked me out since I did not manually tell it to go backwards in versions. After it finished that restoring screen thing and back to the desktop, I didn't see anything different when it finally booted up (I say finally, because it took a long time to do that update thing too, just a few days ago). Is this current version broken? Should I manually do something to fix it or leave it as is and let it update when prompted?

P.S. My main PC has Windows 7, which is the PC I am posting from.

Edit to add: The message "Your PC will restart several times." below the update progress is a helpful message. Thank you Microsoft for that message, the multiple restarts during updating would worry me without the message.

Edit to add:
Oh I forgot to add, my Internet speed is 165mbps DL right now while it updates, so my internet connection is not an issue here *Smile

:)

 

Windows 10 Security Updates taking over an hour to install - on a relatively new computer on which I have religiously installed the previous updates without any problem.

My question was WHY? It takes less time for a full install than the update took. Yes, I have my updates set to install at 3AM. I did not expect that at 6AM to be unable to use my computer. Yes, I am using Office as well, but those updates took a reasonable
amount of time.

 

Windows 10 Security Updates taking over an hour to install - on a relatively new computer on which I have religiously installed the previous updates without any problem.

And my answer was to the question of why...



A clean installation is MUCH simpler than modifying files and the likes LIVE (which includes checking dependencies, back up, editing registry settings possibly, copying the new files, perhaps stopping/starting services, etc.) Similar for the first couple
of rounds of patches, although not as much.



I'm guessing you have gone in and dome some group policies/registry editing for the 3AM thing? Windows 10 doesn't really give the end-users that much direct / GUI-enabled control. heh



So, let's get the sequence of events clarified here...



You have
somehow set updates to download and install at 3AM...

You approached said computer at 6AM and found... what?

Was it rebooting or asking to reboot?



What build of Windows are/were you running?

Might this particular "update" have been the "upgrade" to build 1703?

 

Update finished about an hour and 45 minutes later.

I lost my custom desktop background. I don't remember where I had that image I had put up. I glanced over the Personalize, and I do not see my personally chosen background image there.

This isn't ok :/

 

These two point tell me exactly what is going on. You are most likely on version 1511 at the moment. The update that your PC is trying to install is the Anniversary Update, Windows update would have listed this as 'Features update to windows 10, version 1607'. This is not like any normal update, it's actually a full install of a new version of the OS. As with any install of Windows 10, this will take time and restart several times.

The 'restoring to previous version' means that this upgrade was attempted once before. It failed for some reason. On a failed upgrade, Setup restores everything from your old system and put it back to the way it was before the upgrade started. It is very likely that it is going to fail again this time. When it does, you'll see the 'restoring to previous version' message again.

I'm afraid you may be in for s long wait until it times out and fails. But when it does, you should be back to your working system again.

edit: Oh, I see the upgrade completed successfully while I was typing. You should now be running the Anniversary Update. Run Winver to check - it should now say build 14393. If you have also got the latest updates installed there will be a .187 after the build number.

 

Try File Explorer - search this PC for *.jpg

 

Upgrade or update?
How do I "run winver"?

Other Thoughts:
I believe I selected "Update and shut down" not upgrade. However, I probably wouldn't notice if it did say "Upgrade and Shut Down", since the words are visibly similar, and I was so tired I just wanted to go to bed when I clicked it. I am not sure which of the two words the shut down had said. If I was aware it was an upgrade, I would research first before I went with whatever newer version Windows had nowadays.

Windows 10 has been a disaster/frustrating for me, especially with sound device switching not working right, and an interface that is very foreign looking to me. I only put up with it in hopes to get used to it. I still haven't grown to like it, but I am trying. I got Windows 10 on my spare/side computer July or August of Last year.

I found my desktop background before saw your post, but thank you for the help anyways! I found my Desktop Background image in the folder where I had originally saved it. Thank goodness it was not in a folder with over 1000 photos like I have had in the past. That hunt woulda been a chore.

More Thoughts:
Users shouldn't have to go hunting for their previously chosen Desktop Wallpaper. Updates should keep using the same custom desktop wallpaper the user has selected, or keep it in Customize so they user can pull it up again easily. I don't know why the chosen Desktop Wallpaper was not saved or kept somewhere in Personalization settings. I expect Windows to keep that setting for the user regardless of any update. In my experience since Windows 95, Desktop Backgrounds have only defaulted to a windows one when I reformat the drive, use a different computer, or switch versions (i.e. Windows 7 to Windows 10).

Was this an upgrade, like Windows 8 was to Windows 7? If so, should I be posting in Ten Forums, or the newer one, if it even exists yet. If this "Anniversary Update" is still 10, I'll probably find out after a reply. I'm a little too busy right now to go looking up this info...

Thx for the help!

 

Type winver in the Cortana search box.

Like the Fall Update last November, the Anniversary Update involves a full install of the updated version of Windows 10. I think MS like to call it an 'update' not to worry the punters, but in truth it is an upgrade, complete with a windows.old folder so you can roll back to the previous version. NB: the AU only gives you 10 days to take this option (it was 30 days previously). When the time is up windows.old will automatically be deleted.

No, and it shouldn't have happened to you - it didn't for me.