Windows server 2016 standard, can’t install feature, install pending restart

I am trying to install windows-server-backup feature on windows server 2016 running exchange server 2016, after installing the feature, it shows the status, installation success, pending reboot / restart.

for two weeks now, I am searching the internet, to solve this problem, because no matter how many times I restart the server, or shut it down, still the same, now I can’t install another features or even run SFC /scannow.

I did not find in the registry the keys that many people suggested, like :

UpdateExeVolatile (I even created this one without luck)

PendingFileRenameOperations (nothing in current control set , or 001, or 002, I even made search in the registry and nothing)

I did everything in these posts:

nothing, did not work, please help 🙁

You can’t cancel a reboot?

If you follow the guide above, create a notepad, put something in it but do NOT save it, when you reboot it will ask you to save or cancel the file — cancel the reboot at this stage and proceed with the install.

Do you have any GPO or packages that could stop installs?

If this is your exchange server and it is live, I would be looking to build a second exchange server, install the features you want, migrate the users and remove the old one (correctly though).

There is clearly issues with this server

14 Replies

It still tells you to reboot even after you have, then that registry key should still be there.

retry your app, do not reboot it.

Thx Rod for the reply.

As I mentioned before, I did not find the key to delete it, even after restarting 20 times, still these keys did not appear, maybe these keys exists in win 2012 not anymore in 2016.

Any other ideas?

They exist all the way up to 2019 -I’ve had the same issue, even on core installs.

If you navigate to the location above, can you share a snip

strange! I can\t find it, even with registry search, here are snaps of my registry.

Can you share the error too please

Sure, thank you for your help.

Just wondering why you would even be wasting your time trying to add this inferior backup feature? It’s only good for perhaps a one-time backup with a fair chance of restoring from it. Its limitations are so obvious and well-known than only a few IT people would bother with it these days. Check out the free Veeam Agent for Windows instead, it’s far superior to WSB in every aspect.

Thank you Taurex for the replay.

I need this feature for BackupAssist software which needs it to operate, but, this is not my problem now, the problem is that I can’t install any other feature, because of reboot required (pending restart to complete installation), even SFC command is giving me (another repair process is running, try again later)

Someone else had success with this

Started CMD elevated permissions

In C:\Windows run: lodctrl /r
If you get error then go to C:\Windows\SysWow64 and run the same command.

When succelful run: winmgmt /resyncperf

Restarted server and it was able to install.

The installation might fail when following registry keys are present even after a server restart: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\AutoUpdate\RebootRequired HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager and key “PendingFileRenameOperations”

Thanks a lot Rod.

I saw these before, it did not work for me, I tried again now just in case, please see snaps.

When you are searching for PendingFileRenameOperations are you searching the whole registry or only HKLM?

Check all branches

Not sure if this one will work

Option 2
If the above steps do not work, proceed to the steps below: After receiving the error, open notepad, type anything you want into notepad but do not save it Run the installation. When it gets to the error message, go ahead and tell it to reboot Windows will pop up with the screen saying you have unsaved files and will give you the option to cancel the reboot. Cancel the reboot and the installation and proceed with installation

I searched the whole registry and with multiple key words options not just PendingFileRenameOperations , like pending or reboot or restart, did not find anything useful.

AS for the second step, I don’t have an error, when I install from GUI or Powershell, it shows installing but then it times out after two hours, even installing something simple like telnet client times out, because another feature needs a restart to complete the installation, I can’t cancel this restart request, and restarting the server does not make any difference, the feature still shows installed bending restart.

Before I could uninstall it, but now, I can’t uninstall it as well.

Restart pending windows server

This forum has migrated to Microsoft Q&A. Visit Microsoft Q&A to post new questions.

Answered by:

Question

I have a single client (Win7 SP1) that installs all new updates but even after reboot, that client reports that a reboot is pending for all updates. That client does in fact have the updates installed (they are in the list of installed updates) and it is now up to 27 updates pending reboot. That list just keep growing.

I have tried blowing out the Software Distribution folder as well as deleting the pending.xml file however that file simply recreates itself after reboot with all the old values thus continuing to report all the pending reboots.

Any ideas? I would greatly appreciate any help!

Here’s a snippet of the log:

2011-11-15 13:49:53:952 1144 149c Misc WARNING: IsSessionNonstandardUI: session 65536 is an unknown session type 0; treating it as a standard session
2011-11-15 13:49:53:956 1144 149c AU Launched new AU client for directive ‘Reboot Pending’, session > 2011-11-15 13:49:53:999 1144 1314 AU Windows Update is disabled by policy for user
2011-11-15 13:49:54:013 1144 149c AU AU received handle event

This just repeats over and over again. This also pops up once in a while:

2011-11-15 13:38:21:296 7556 1974 Misc =========== Logging initialized (build: 7.5.7601.17514, tz: -0800) ===========
2011-11-15 13:38:21:296 7556 1974 Misc = Process: C:\Windows\system32\wuauclt.exe
2011-11-15 13:38:21:296 7556 1974 Misc = Module: C:\Windows\system32\wucltux.dll
2011-11-15 13:38:21:296 7556 1974 CltUI AU client got new directive = ‘Reboot Pending’, serviceId = <3da21691-e39d-4da6-8a4b-b43877bcb1b7>, return = 0
2011-11-15 13:38:21:305 7556 1974 AUClnt WARNING: Shell_NotifyIcon failed (dwMessage=0x0, uFlags=0x7, hr=0x800705B4)
2011-11-15 13:38:21:305 7556 1974 AUClnt WARNING: Shell_NotifyIcon failed (dwMessage=0x0, uFlags=0x7, hr=0x800705B4)
2011-11-15 13:38:21:305 7556 1974 AUClnt WARNING: Shell_NotifyIcon failed (dwMessage=0x0, uFlags=0x7, hr=0x800705B4)
2011-11-15 13:38:21:305 7556 1974 AUClnt WARNING: Shell_NotifyIcon failed (dwMessage=0x0, uFlags=0x7, hr=0x800705B4)
2011-11-15 13:38:21:356 1144 149c AU AU received handle event
2011-11-15 13:38:36:299 1144 149c Misc WARNING: IsSessionNonstandardUI: session 65536 is an unknown session type 0; treating it as a standard session
2011-11-15 13:38:36:303 1144 149c AU Launched new AU client for directive ‘Reboot Pending’, session > 2011-11-15 13:38:36:306 1144 149c AU Launched new AU client for directive ‘Reboot Pending’, session >

Some of those errors are because Windows Update is disabled for all users, they have no control. I also suppress all notifications. All machines shutdown at the end of the day anyway.

Answers

When the machine is in the reboot pending state, it will create the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Auto Update\RebootRequired

Once the reboot occurs, this key will be deleted. We can check to see if this key exists on this client.

If the key exist then we need to remove the key and restart Windows Update service.

Ketan Thakkar | Microsoft Online Community Support

All replies

Thank you for posting here.

I have tried blowing out the Software Distribution folder

If the WUA is corrupted on the client, but it seems not.

2011-11-15 13:49:53:999 1144 1314 AU Windows Update is disabled by policy for user

It seems that you were doing some misconfiguration on your GroupPolicy.Check out with rsop.msc on the client side to see whether there were some misconfiguration. You can post your GP configuration here for us.

Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Thank you for your reply. This user is using the same GPO as everyone else.

Configure Automatic Updates — Enabled (4, every day)

Specify inranet MS update service location — Enabled

Automatic Updates detection frequency — Enabled

Allow Automatic Updates immediate installation — Enabled

No auto-restart with logged on user for scheduled automatic updates — Enabled

Do not display ‘Install Updates and Shut Down’ option — Enabled

Remove access to use all Windows Update features — Enabled

Both the GPO and users rsop.msc match.

Do not display ‘Install Updates and Shut Down’ option — Enabled

Remove access to use all Windows Update features — Enabled

Make the above two settings to disabled.

No auto-restart with logged on user for scheduled automatic updates — Enabled

If the status is set to Enabled, Automatic Updates will not restart a computer automatically during a scheduled installation if a user is logged in to the computer. Instead, Automatic Updates will notify the user to restart the computer.

I guess restarting your computer may not trigger the update installation without hitting the pop-up restarting pane.

My suggestion is to disable the related above three settings which may result in Reports Reboot Pending to see whether it works.

Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

After making the changes and rebooting a few times throughout the day the machine still reports Reboot Pending.

For what it’s worth, all our clients are setup the same way and no one else has had a problem since WSUS 1.0. It is our policy to not allow users to apply their own updates. Security updates are applied whether they like it or not 🙂

Pls do the following again on this computer:

1. Record the system time

2. Stop the Automatic Updates service, rename the %windir%\SoftwareDistribution folder to SoftwareDistribution.OLD, and restart the Automatic Updates service.

3. Run this command: wuauclt /resetauthorization /detectnow

4. Wait 30 minutes.

5. Post the entries from the WindowsUpdate.log starting at the time recorded in Step #1

Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

2011-11-18 11:11:22:822 1144 9a4 Misc =========== Logging initialized (build: 7.5.7601.17514, tz: -0800) ===========
2011-11-18 11:11:22:822 1144 9a4 Misc = Process: C:\Windows\system32\svchost.exe
2011-11-18 11:11:22:822 1144 9a4 Misc = Module: c:\windows\system32\wuaueng.dll
2011-11-18 11:11:22:822 1144 9a4 Service *************
2011-11-18 11:11:22:822 1144 9a4 Service ** START ** Service: Service startup
2011-11-18 11:11:22:822 1144 9a4 Service *********
2011-11-18 11:11:22:826 1144 9a4 Agent * WU client version 7.5.7601.17514
2011-11-18 11:11:22:826 1144 9a4 Agent * Base directory: C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution
2011-11-18 11:11:22:826 1144 9a4 Agent * Access type: No proxy
2011-11-18 11:11:22:826 1144 9a4 Agent * Network state: Connected
2011-11-18 11:11:23:876 1144 9a4 DtaStor Default service for AU is <00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000>
2011-11-18 11:11:23:877 1144 9a4 DtaStor Default service for AU is <9482f4b4-e343-43b6-b170-9a65bc822c77>
2011-11-18 11:11:23:879 1144 9a4 Agent WARNING: Failed to read the service id for re-registration 0x80070002
2011-11-18 11:11:23:879 1144 9a4 Agent WARNING: Missing service entry in the backup data store; cleaning up
2011-11-18 11:11:33:899 1144 c8c Report CWERReporter::Init succeeded
2011-11-18 11:11:33:899 1144 c8c Agent *********** Agent: Initializing Windows Update Agent ***********
2011-11-18 11:11:33:899 1144 c8c Agent *********** Agent: Initializing global settings cache ***********
2011-11-18 11:11:33:899 1144 c8c Agent * WSUS server: http://APP1
2011-11-18 11:11:33:900 1144 c8c Agent * WSUS status server: http://APP1
2011-11-18 11:11:33:900 1144 c8c Agent * Target group: (Unassigned Computers)
2011-11-18 11:11:33:900 1144 c8c Agent * Windows Update access disabled: No
2011-11-18 11:11:33:900 1144 c8c DnldMgr Download manager restoring 0 downloads
2011-11-18 11:11:33:900 1144 c8c AU ########### AU: Initializing Automatic Updates ###########
2011-11-18 11:11:33:901 1144 c8c AU # WSUS server: http://APP1
2011-11-18 11:11:33:901 1144 c8c AU # Detection frequency: 1
2011-11-18 11:11:33:901 1144 c8c AU # Approval type: Scheduled (Policy)
2011-11-18 11:11:33:901 1144 c8c AU # Scheduled install day/time: Every day at 9:00
2011-11-18 11:11:33:901 1144 c8c AU # Auto-install minor updates: Yes (Policy)
2011-11-18 11:11:33:901 1144 c8c AU # Will interact with non-admins (Non-admins are elevated (User preference))
2011-11-18 11:11:33:903 1144 c8c AU Setting AU scheduled install time to 2011-11-19 17:00:00
2011-11-18 11:11:34:068 1144 9a4 Report *********** Report: Initializing static reporting data ***********
2011-11-18 11:11:34:069 1144 9a4 Report * OS Version = 6.1.7601.1.0.65792
2011-11-18 11:11:34:069 1144 9a4 Report * OS Product Type = 0x00000030
2011-11-18 11:11:34:093 1144 9a4 Report * Computer Brand = LENOVO
2011-11-18 11:11:34:093 1144 9a4 Report * Computer Model = 2516CTO
2011-11-18 11:11:34:097 1144 9a4 Report * Bios Revision = 6IET75WW (1.35 )
2011-11-18 11:11:34:097 1144 9a4 Report * Bios Name = Ver 1.00PARTTBLx
2011-11-18 11:11:34:097 1144 9a4 Report * Bios Release Date = 2011-02-01T00:00:00
2011-11-18 11:11:34:097 1144 9a4 Report * Locale > 2011-11-18 11:11:34:100 1144 c8c AU Successfully wrote event for AU health state:0
2011-11-18 11:11:34:101 1144 c8c AU Initializing featured updates
2011-11-18 11:11:34:101 1144 c8c AU Found 0 cached featured updates
2011-11-18 11:11:34:101 1144 c8c AU Successfully wrote event for AU health state:0
2011-11-18 11:11:34:103 1144 c8c AU Successfully wrote event for AU health state:0
2011-11-18 11:11:34:103 1144 c8c AU AU finished delayed initialization
2011-11-18 11:11:34:103 1144 c8c AU Triggering AU detection through DetectNow API
2011-11-18 11:11:34:104 1144 c8c AU Triggering Online detection (non-interactive)
2011-11-18 11:11:34:105 1144 9a4 AU AU setting pending client directive to ‘Reboot Pending’
2011-11-18 11:11:34:105 1144 9a4 AU #############
2011-11-18 11:11:34:106 1144 9a4 AU ## START ## AU: Search for updates
2011-11-18 11:11:34:106 1144 9a4 AU #########
2011-11-18 11:11:34:107 1144 9a4 AU 2011-11-18 11:11:49:116 1144 9a4 AU Launched new AU client for directive ‘Reboot Pending’, session > 2011-11-18 11:11:49:130 584 1c18 Misc =========== Logging initialized (build: 7.5.7601.17514, tz: -0800) ===========
2011-11-18 11:11:49:130 584 1c18 Misc = Process: C:\Windows\system32\wuauclt.exe
2011-11-18 11:11:49:129 584 1c18 AUClnt Launched Client UI process
2011-11-18 11:11:49:146 1144 c8c AU Windows Update is disabled by policy for user
2011-11-18 11:11:49:149 584 1c18 Misc =========== Logging initialized (build: 7.5.7601.17514, tz: -0800) ===========
2011-11-18 11:11:49:149 584 1c18 Misc = Process: C:\Windows\system32\wuauclt.exe
2011-11-18 11:11:49:149 584 1c18 Misc = Module: C:\Windows\system32\wucltux.dll
2011-11-18 11:11:49:149 584 1c18 CltUI AU client got new directive = ‘Reboot Pending’, serviceId = <3da21691-e39d-4da6-8a4b-b43877bcb1b7>, return = 0
2011-11-18 11:11:49:155 1144 9a4 AU AU received handle event
2011-11-18 11:12:04:154 1144 9a4 Misc WARNING: IsSessionNonstandardUI: session 65536 is an unknown session type 0; treating it as a standard session
2011-11-18 11:12:04:158 1144 9a4 AU Launched new AU client for directive ‘Reboot Pending’, session > 2011-11-18 11:12:04:200 1144 c8c AU Windows Update is disabled by policy for user
2011-11-18 11:12:04:210 1144 9a4 AU AU received handle event
2011-11-18 11:12:19:215 1144 9a4 Misc WARNING: IsSessionNonstandardUI: session 65536 is an unknown session type 0; treating it as a standard session
2011-11-18 11:12:19:219 1144 9a4 AU Launched new AU client for directive ‘Reboot Pending’, session > 2011-11-18 11:12:19:266 1144 9a4 AU AU received handle event
2011-11-18 11:12:25:169 1144 1bc8 PT +++++++++++ PT: Synchronizing extended update info +++++++++++
2011-11-18 11:12:25:169 1144 1bc8 PT + ServiceId = <3da21691-e39d-4da6-8a4b-b43877bcb1b7>, Server URL = http://APP1/ClientWebService/client.asmx
2011-11-18 11:12:26:966 1144 1bc8 Agent * Added update <5498abad-2816-4d28-92cc-c08a3dfce8e6>.102 to search result
2011-11-18 11:12:26:966 1144 1bc8 Agent * Added update <1c2a95a3-2f44-432b-a276-ea23ece8a351>.102 to search result
2011-11-18 11:12:26:966 1144 1bc8 Agent * Added update .102 to search result
2011-11-18 11:12:26:966 1144 1bc8 Agent * Added update .101 to search result
2011-11-18 11:12:26:966 1144 1bc8 Agent * Added update <0f028fe3-2563-4461-919d-4d084be3991e>.100 to search result
2011-11-18 11:12:26:966 1144 1bc8 Agent * Added update <46af0b76-2c77-46f3-9f16-749b0b91a1b4>.103 to search result
2011-11-18 11:12:26:966 1144 1bc8 Agent * Added update <8922879b-749c-4d67-a587-429c2440ed78>.102 to search result
2011-11-18 11:12:26:966 1144 1bc8 Agent * Added update .102 to search result
2011-11-18 11:12:26:966 1144 1bc8 Agent * Added update .101 to search result
2011-11-18 11:12:26:966 1144 1bc8 Agent * Added update .101 to search result
2011-11-18 11:12:26:966 1144 1bc8 Agent * Added update <92f745a2-c314-4a42-998c-dd611478b9b3>.101 to search result
2011-11-18 11:12:26:966 1144 1bc8 Agent * Added update .102 to search result
2011-11-18 11:12:26:966 1144 1bc8 Agent * Added update <2f3e839a-1d83-4774-8f70-ab0e72c2568c>.102 to search result
2011-11-18 11:12:26:966 1144 1bc8 Agent * Added update <83bd98a5-a4ea-4c60-b59f-8ba55e7abc67>.102 to search result
2011-11-18 11:12:26:966 1144 1bc8 Agent * Added update <14244bdd-9ac8-4e13-9859-a316764d7554>.100 to search result
2011-11-18 11:12:26:966 1144 1bc8 Agent * Added update .101 to search result
2011-11-18 11:12:26:966 1144 1bc8 Agent * Added update .101 to search result
2011-11-18 11:12:26:967 1144 1bc8 Agent * Added update <6a3b765c-d933-46cc-af30-86619041b5bc>.102 to search result
2011-11-18 11:12:26:967 1144 1bc8 Agent * Added update <861eaa12-c03d-4fbf-80c9-b88a9ab4dad1>.100 to search result
2011-11-18 11:12:26:967 1144 1bc8 Agent * Added update .101 to search result
2011-11-18 11:12:26:967 1144 1bc8 Agent * Added update .101 to search result
2011-11-18 11:12:26:967 1144 1bc8 Agent * Added update .100 to search result
2011-11-18 11:12:26:967 1144 1bc8 Agent * Found 22 updates and 62 categories in search; evaluated appl. rules of 780 out of 1043 deployed entities
2011-11-18 11:12:26:970 1144 1bc8 Agent *********
2011-11-18 11:12:26:970 1144 1bc8 Agent ** END ** Agent: Finding updates [CallerId = AutomaticUpdates]
2011-11-18 11:12:26:970 1144 1bc8 Agent *************
2011-11-18 11:12:26:974 1144 1ec8 AU >>## RESUMED ## AU: Search for updates [CallId = <9bbdbade-2c24-4511-9bd1-75f83431dcc4>]
2011-11-18 11:12:26:974 1144 1ec8 AU # 22 updates detected
2011-11-18 11:12:26:976 1144 1ec8 AU #########
2011-11-18 11:12:26:976 1144 1ec8 AU ## END ## AU: Search for updates [CallId = <9bbdbade-2c24-4511-9bd1-75f83431dcc4>]
2011-11-18 11:12:26:976 1144 1ec8 AU #############
2011-11-18 11:12:26:977 1144 1bc8 Report CWERReporter finishing event handling. (00000000)
2011-11-18 11:12:26:977 1144 1bc8 Report REPORT EVENT: <8ec00342-3d57-4120-b33e-17f7b713c0ad>2011-11-18 11:12:26:967-0800 1 147 101 <00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000>0 0 AutomaticUpdates Success Software Synchronization Windows Update Client successfully detected 22 updates.
2011-11-18 11:12:26:977 1144 1bc8 Report REPORT EVENT: <266ecb4c-91af-45b9-8d8e-ba0cba780abe>2011-11-18 11:12:26:967-0800 1 156 101 <00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000>0 0 AutomaticUpdates Success Pre-Deployment Check Reporting client status.
2011-11-18 11:12:26:979 1144 1ec8 AU Successfully wrote event for AU health state:0

This repeats about a hundred times:

2011-11-18 11:12:26:979 1144 1ec8 AU AU setting next detection timeout to 2011-11-18 20:03:53
2011-11-18 11:12:26:979 1144 1ec8 AU Setting AU scheduled install time to 2011-11-19 17:00:00
2011-11-18 11:12:26:979 1144 1ec8 AU Successfully wrote event for AU health state:0
2011-11-18 11:12:26:980 1144 1ec8 AU Successfully wrote event for AU health state:0
2011-11-18 11:12:26:980 1144 1bc8 Report CWERReporter finishing event handling. (00000000)
2011-11-18 11:12:26:981 1144 1bc8 Report CWERReporter finishing event handling. (00000000)
2011-11-18 11:12:31:969 1144 1bc8 Report CWERReporter finishing event handling. (00000000)
2011-11-18 11:12:34:270 1144 9a4 Misc WARNING: IsSessionNonstandardUI: session 65536 is an unknown session type 0; treating it as a standard session
2011-11-18 11:12:34:274 1144 9a4 AU Launched new AU client for directive ‘Reboot Pending’, session >

Then continues with:

2011-11-18 11:12:26:979 1144 1ec8 AU AU setting next detection timeout to 2011-11-18 20:03:53
2011-11-18 11:12:26:979 1144 1ec8 AU Setting AU scheduled install time to 2011-11-19 17:00:00
2011-11-18 11:12:26:979 1144 1ec8 AU Successfully wrote event for AU health state:0
2011-11-18 11:12:26:980 1144 1ec8 AU Successfully wrote event for AU health state:0
2011-11-18 11:12:26:980 1144 1bc8 Report CWERReporter finishing event handling. (00000000)
2011-11-18 11:12:26:981 1144 1bc8 Report CWERReporter finishing event handling. (00000000)
2011-11-18 11:12:31:969 1144 1bc8 Report CWERReporter finishing event handling. (00000000)
2011-11-18 11:12:34:270 1144 9a4 Misc WARNING: IsSessionNonstandardUI: session 65536 is an unknown session type 0; treating it as a standard session
2011-11-18 11:12:34:274 1144 9a4 AU Launched new AU client for directive ‘Reboot Pending’, session >