I ran into this problem with 3 Virtual Machines. All of them were brand new installations, so it was not an issue with badly behaving applications.
The cause appeared to be the way Gen2 virtual machines worked with a particular recent update. Gen 1 virtual machines did not present this issue.
Thanks to Susan Bradley and GurliGebis on the technet forums here (http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/e58c8b30-b91a-4d90-a1b5-8859ffc3b92c/kb2920189-fails-to-install-on-generation-2-vms?forum=winserverhyperv), we have a workaround.
- Shutdown the Virtual Machine.
-
In the VM settings, disable Secure Boot.
- Start the VM and install the updates.
- Shutdown the VM and re-enable Secure Boot again.
- Start up the VM.
It worked. Thanks. I prayed a lot to you.
Almost a year later and I just ran into the same issue. Gen 2 VMs, fresh install of Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows updates, bam, all 3 are stuck.
Same issue as Ben here. 🙁
It worked also for us.
Starting VM after the “Undoing Changes” message we have to wait a lot… but it runs!
Thanks,
S.
Hi,
I just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to publish this information. This has saved me a lot of time.
I have this problem with a Gen 1 machine. Do you have any ideas how to fix that issue.
It is a brand new install. All I have done is updates.
Could be a different issue. You need to investigate further and check the logs.
Hey James,
we have this problem also with a Gen 1 and 2012 R2 on Hyper-V.
How you fixed your problem Sir?!
AWESOME!!!!
Thank you a million times.
I have been struggling with this for some time now and couldn’t find a good solution until I came across your article.
You saved me a lot of time.
Worked for me too.
It did take a long long time for it to come right but eventually Undoing Changes completed and the VM rebooted into Windows.
Thank you.
This is one of those problems that makes you shake your head and wonder which inmate is running the asylum at Microsoft. I waited for about an hour and a half for the nearly 1 gig of updates to download and install. Upon rebooting I got the message about updates not being applied and “undoing changes”. That’s been going on for 2 hours. When it finally reboots I’ll apply the fix so generously provided on this site. By the time it’s all said and done I’ll probably have waited 5 or 6 hours to spin up one completely clean VM…all because I chose a Gen2 machine. Incredible. Thanks for posting this fix.
It would probably be faster to delete the VM and start over from scratch rather than waiting for the “Undoing changes”!
This fixed my issue! Thanks!!!
The issue still occurs even if Secure Boot and KB2920189 are not selected. Any more ideas?
There are a few Fixit solutions from Microsoft that may help.
Also, try http://www.windowsupdatesdownloader.com to download and install individual updates, and see if you can isolate the patch that is not working.
disabled secure boot but no change … still sitting at the “we couldnt complete the updates undoing changes dont turn off your computer”
…. will give it a few hours and see what happens. will post back when i do.
fwiw its been a few hours … still undoing changes.
let it run over night, changes have been undone and server boots.
A Gen2 VM is doing that right now, even though all seems to be working fine for the users. They can connect to shared folders, DHCP and DNS is working. There are no issues for the clients but the server shows “Undoing Changes”. I will work on this later since it is not affecting any users.
The solution states to shut it down but I can’t get into the server. Do I try from the Hyper-V console, or just power it off?
Thanks.
If you cannot shut it down gracefully, you may just have to power it off.
Solution Works . Disable Secure Boot and let it roll back it self .
Sad to say I’m trying to install Server 2012 R2 into a Hyper-V VM on Server 2016 TP5, and this problem still exists!
And it’s even sadder to say that it still exists on a fresh 2012 R2 VM on 2016 RTM.
We are using a server 2012R2 VM.it’s a Gen1 VM, and we are getting “we couldn’t complete the updates undoing changes ” error during reboot after running update.
OMG this has been driving me nuts for two days now. I cannot believe it was so simple. Thank you so much!!
thanks for the post,
Still my issue is not solved. Its getting stuck 88% of Working on Update and reboot after long time, the undoing changes.
Please advice with any other fixes…
Thanks a lot for your time.
Disabled the secure boot on Gen2 Hyper-v machine but still giving the same message, can someone has any idea? I left it run overnight and nothing changed.
I’m having the same issue We couldn’t complete the updates. Undoing changes. Error on Windows Server 2012 R2.
Its been going on for about 5 hrs now..
F>F>S Microsoft!
And what do I do with the vm I have on Azure? How is that changed to switch of Secure Boot?
Got this exact issue with vm in Azure that was created a while ago and the previous support mob never put on updates in over a year!
Any ideas????
We have the same issue with server 2012 r2 vmware virtual machine. “WE COULDN’T COMPLETE THE UPDATES. UNDOING CHANGES”
Kindly share if you have any fix for it…
It worked for me on Server 2016.
If you’re getting this problem and the article’s fix doesn’t work, try running just a couple updates at a time to narrow it down. In my case I found that kb4036479 was causing this problem. It is a known issue and the update has been pulled by MS.
Thank you !!!
Thank very mucho.
100%.
Save my lab !
🙂
Thank you so much. This article is a life saver.