HP laptop, Windows 8.1. I got one of those messages about the computer needing to shut down to apply updates, so I said “sure”. That was over an hour ago and I still just have a gray screen.
Now what?
You could try CTRL-ALT-DEL and choose Task Manager, then kill all extraneous processes. Could be that Windows is having trouble waiting for a process to close before the shutdown.
I could have done that if anything resembling Windows would have loaded first. I got nothing from the instant I pushed the on button, just a gray screen.
On a whim, I held down the Shift, fn, F8 buttons and stretched my index finger over to hit the ‘on’ button at the same time. It seems to have worked, as I’m now typing on the laptop. I don’t think I’m going to update again, ever.
Was your screen blank with the laptop running but Windows apparently stuck, or was the laptop completely shut down?
For some updates on some hardware the first phase of the update process ends with them shutting the laptop down completely. Then you’re expected to push the power button to turn it back on to finish the updates. If you go months never shutting down completely, just leaving it either awake or sleeping, you might not recognize the subtle signs that it’s completely off.
Ask me how long I stared at mine a few years ago before I figured that out. D’oh!!
The updates rebooted the computer after they were done, and nothing happened. Blank screen. I let it sit like that for about half hour, came back and nothing had changed. So I shut it down completely, then turned it back on; same result. Tried again in a half hour and posted here in the meantime. Still nothing. Tried ctrl-alt-del with no success. Tried shift-f8 (trying to start in safe mode) and nothing. Then I realized that the F keys are part of the fn (function) mode and require the fn key to be mashed. Hence my gymnastics described above, which appears to have appeased Satan and his crappy Windows 8 issue.
I use a 7 and an 8.1. Both having tremendous trouble with this round of updates (most of which are failing to install), which of course means that anything I try to do, like work on the computer, is at a crawl if it works at all. They keep claiming to install and say I have no additional updates available, but in about 30 minutes they change their mind.