When Windows server wants to reboot to finish uninstalling a feature/role, what happens if I just never reboot?

If I use dism or remove-windowsfeature to uninstall a windows role or feature and it tells me it needs to reboot what problems could I run into if I wait a long time to reboot?

Obviously this would vary greatly with the specific feature being uninstalled, so I'm curious if there any issues not directly related to the specific feature I should worry about- does windows installer remain in a weird unfinished state before the reboot, could this impact installing other features (features that are not related to the one uninstalled).

I know if I uninstall .net that will have an obvious impact on other features, but is there anything else in the OS, again not related to or depending on the feature I uninstall, that could go wrong?

I always reboot promptly, but I'm curious about how that reboot pending switch works and how it is registered/unregistered.

Solution 1:

If I use dism or remove-windowsfeature to uninstall a windows role or feature and it tells me it needs to reboot what problems could I run into if I wait a long time to reboot?

To state the obvious, any operations that check for a pending reboot before proceeding will fail.

This includes installing many kinds of software and hotfixes.

Here is an excerpt from the website of the Sysinternals tool pendmoves:

"There are several applications, such as service packs and hotfixes, that must replace a file that's in use and is unable to. Windows therefore provides the MoveFileEx API to rename or delete a file and allows the caller to specify that they want the operation to take place the next time the system boots, before the files are referenced. Session Manager performs this task by reading the registered rename and delete commands from the HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\PendingFileRenameOperations value."