How To Cancel Pending Windows 7 Updates

Solution 1:

You can edit configuration from the group policy editor.

Start -> Run
gpedit.msc
Administrative Templates / Windows Components / Windows Update /Donot Display "Install updates and shutdown" option

Solution 2:

1) Go into the Windows Updates configuration and disable automatic updates. I don't recommend leaving it set this way, this is only a temporary fix, the better solution is #2

Control Panel (icon view) > Windows Update > Change Settings

2) Open Windows Updates and de-select the updates you don't want installed, then right click on them and select "hide", you can unhide them later when you get things sorted out.

Control Panel (icon view) > Windows Update

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Solution 3:

If you mean "pending reboot," then the file replacements have already been made by the Windows update agent and are awaiting system reboot (or they may have already been replaced, and are just awaiting reboot to be loaded).

If it's the former case, you will need to tell the system there is no restart pending and clear the pending file replacements by setting the following registry keys:

Change value to: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Updates\ reg_dword:"UpdateExeVolatile" = 0x00000000
Delete: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\PendingFileRenameOperations

Then you should perform the following to proactively remove the downloaded and cached updates from being accessible by the Windows update agent:

net stop wuauserv
rmdir /s /q "%systemroot%\SoftwareDistribution"
net start wuauserv

Also check the following registry key and clear it:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Component Based Servicing\RebootPending

If it's the latter case, you will have to replace drivers with a working copy using the Windows RE (recovery environment).

Ref:

• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/832475
• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc164360%28v=EXCHG.80%29.aspx
• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee649098.aspx