Getting a “Preparing Automatic Repair” screen at startup but don’t know where to go from there

[SteveNerry]

Need help getting this OC running ASAP. 

[WAWood]

@SteveNerry 

Unfortunately, that nearly always means that a recent Windows Update failed and Microsoft then tried to recover from that, but that failed, so it's trying over and over again -- and will never succeed because Windows Update got corrupted in the process.

These problems were reported with KB4532693 back in February of 2020, and more recently, with KB4556799. Unfortunately, this is NOT a new issue with Win10 Windows Updates.

First thing you need to do is see if you can restart in Safe mode -- by doing these steps: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2304-boot-into-safe-mode-windows-10-a.html

If you don't know how to start using Advanced Startup Options, then read this: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2294-boot-advanced-startup-options-windows-10-a.html

Then, follow these steps to reset Windows Update: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/24742-reset-windows-update-windows-10-a.html

If these work, when you finally reboot, you should then be able to login to a working Windows desktop.