Windows 2008 – Windows update stuck on “Preparing to configure. Do not turn off your computer.”

When doing a Windows update you may run into a circumstance where it becomes stuck or frozen on “Preparing to configure. Do not turn off your computer.”  Do not hard boot your computer.  It may not come back up.  To resolve this issue try the following:
1. If you are an administrator, on your Windows workstation/server Run services.msc
2. Right click on Services (Local) and select Connect to another computer.
3. Once connected scroll down to Windows Modules Installer
If this is in a stopping state then this post is for you.
4. Get a copy of pskill from the Sysinternals Suite
5. Run a command prompt as Administrator
6. cd\ to the directory that you saved pskill to
7. Run the following command: pskill -t \\yourservername -u yourusername -p yourpassword trustedinstaller.exe
This should immediately stop the service and the server will finish its rebooting and updating cycle.

By: Timothy Conrad