Pavilion dv6-1350 us running Windows 7 won't shut down

[Mick70]

Haven't used my laptop for last 45 days and have not installed anything new. Running W7, 64 bit. Just used it over last few days and it won't shut down. When I shut down it just hangs and shows screen that says "Please do not power off or unplug your machine. Installing update 1 of 1". This can go on for hours.

I have shut down manually with the power button which of course results in message when I start up again that "Windows didn't shut down properly".

I thought that since I literally hadn't used the laptop or turned it on for about 45 days, that I was perhaps missing some important Windows updates, but when i go to Windows update via Control Panel and click on Windows Update to search for updates, it just "hangs" there as well, never showing available updates. Last W update installed was on 3/26/16 and laptop worked OK.

Any ideas?

[WAWood]

Mick70

Hello;

Allow me to welcome you to the HP forums!

I read your post about problems with Win7 on your laptop and wanted to help.

Regarding Windows Update appearing to NOT work in Windows 7 ...

I continue to support a bunch of Win7 PCs, some of which were rolled back from Win10 because the owners disliked Win10 so much.

But, I have noticed that recently, Windows Update has been performing really slowly on ALL these machines.

The symptoms are that it searches for HOURS -- and does not appear to make any progress!

OR .. it finds stuff, but then goes into downloading for HOURS ... and does not appear to make any progress!

It's as if MS is forcing Windows Update on older PCs to behave badly to pressure us ALL into upgrading to Win10.  Now, they wouldn't do that, would they!!

Anyway,  check for a Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Downloads\ folder.  This is where Windows Updates stores the updates it downloads and its working files.  IF it exists, Windows Update is working -- even though you see no progress.  Over time, the folder will grow until all the Updates have been downloaded.  Then, it will shrink as the Updates get applied.  When done, Windows should remove it. If it does not, you can remove the contents of that folder, but do not remove the folder itself.

And yes ... updates are taking hours (or days!) when they used to take only a few minutes.

So basically, there is nothing wrong with your PC.  This is MS making our lives miserable because they are trying to force all of us into upgrading to Win10 -- even if we don't want it!

And -- if you RESET it, you are only going to make matters worse as that will start the Update process from scratch, and the last time I did that, it took three full days (!) to find, download, and apply all the updates.

NOTE: If waiting doesn't work, then try running this repair utility:  http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/windowsupdatefixer.html

AND ... if that finally works, then run this utility to prevent your PC from being upgraded to Win10: GRC | Never10  

Good Luck
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[Mick70 · Accepted solution]

I downloaded ccleaner pro (trial edition), and scanned the hard drive. I checked "fix all issues" and it worked! Whatever files or conflicts on the registry or wherever was causing the "hang up" were evidently eliminated as my laptop was able to shutdown. 🙂