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I have a Windows 2008 Standard server, fresh install, fully patched with no roles installed.

This morning I went and installed the following roles:

  • AD Certificates
  • Terminal Services
  • IIS

When the server restarts, it goes into "Configuring Updates" for 15 minutes. It then restarts. When it restarts, it says that the updates failed, and rolls them back. When I log in, it brings up the Roles wizard (as it usually does after adding a role) and tells me I need to restart again.

It will not let me remove any roles till I restart. Of course, when I restart it goes back to "Configuring Updates", fails, restarts, rolls back, then demands another restart, repeat and rinse.

How can I remove all of the pending roles without using the Remove Roles task in the Roles screen of the Server Manager (because it won't let me, because it demands a restart)?

2 Answers 2

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Try this:

Reboot from the server 2008 install disc and choose the repair option and command prompt.

navigate to c:\windows\winsxs, and rename pending.xml to pending.old

Reboot

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  • Thanks. I managed to get it fixed by another method, but this may have worked too... Jul 2, 2009 at 22:44
  • I had to do this when trying to install a bunch of updates threw the server into a reboot loop. Worked great!
    – a_hardin
    Jun 28, 2010 at 21:54
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I was able to fix the issue by:

  • Waiting for the restart loop to finished
  • Log in as a local administrator (not a domain user)
  • Go to the Roles panel, and install each role one-by-one
  • Logging in as local admin each time

Once I had the same roles installed that were failing, it started behaving again.

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