There have been a number of reports that KB4532920 is causing endless reboots loops on Windows Server 2012. One of my customers experienced this today. This update was released on December 10th 2019.
This is a servicing stack update which improves the updates process on Windows, ironic that installing it puts the server into an endless reboot loop!
I was able to work around the problem by booting into safe mode with command prompt and then issuing the command:
shutdown /r /t 1The problem was that I was unable to access safe mode because by default the F8 boot options are disabled on Windows Server 2012.
To access safe mode in Windows Server 2012
- Boot from the Windows Server ISO.
- Choose “Repair your computer” from the main installation dialog:
- On the next screen choose “Troubleshoot”.
- Then choose command prompt.
- At the command prompt enter these commands:
- bcdedit /set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu yes
- bcdedit /set {bootmgr} timeout 10
Now reboot the machine and you should be able to access the boot options. Boot into safe mode and login as normal. At the command prompt you can just reboot the machine again. This particular machine required another reboot before it came up normally. But the update did show as having been installed:
These unexpected problems really waste a lot of time, but thankfully it was not too difficult to fix.
Simon says
Thank you ! This fixed our issue.
Guilherme says
Please help, bcdedit physical server does not work, raid hd
Paulie says
You need to provide windows server boot cd with the drivers for your raid controller – put them on a USB drive and load from there.
Guilherme says
Tried with a USB disk, should I do with a CD then?
Paulie says
Both can be usb (even the same USB). But you need the drivers for the RAID controller for Windows Server to recognise the volumes.
Guilherme says
Sorry for my lack of knowledge, but how to indicate for the installation, where are the drivers? I will download and add to the flash drive.
Sorry my english
Guilherme says
I was able to do the command bcdedit, but the system loads automatically, not for timeout, already tried with 30 seconds
Guilherme says
I managed to make the menu appear but the keyboard does not work by pressing f8
I go trie safeboot
Renato says
My God, I don’t know what else to do, I was able to load in safe mode and yet it restarts with the same message, “stopping the services”
Paulie says
What a pain – can you go into last known good?
Andy says
I repaired by booting last good configuration and waited 45 minutes. It then did a reinstall automatically and it worked.
Paulie says
Glad you got it working – it’s such an inconvenient waste of time and effort!
Dhananjay kadam says
how can we avoid this ? should manually installation of updates will work?
and what precaution we have to take this in future patching schedules.