Windows 10 Stuck on the Restart Screen (Creators Update)

For quite a lot of users, Windows 10 is getting stuck on the restart screen (forever) while trying to manually restart their PCs. Even for me, especially since upgrading to Windows 10, the OS just doesn’t do anything until it’s hard to reset and will just sit there unless intervened.

From my experience, though, this doesn’t stay forever because if you give it enough time, it eventually does restart. So, it seems like some process or program running in the background is hindering the whole restart mechanism.

After digging a bit about the issue, I have realized that the problem is with our very old Windows Update. What’s happening is that in order to download updates for the OS, the updater updates itself. This is where it is getting stuck. So, the solution to this problem is to just regenerate the SoftwareDistribution packages in Windows update. The regenerated packages will allow Windows update to check the updates for all the installed programs and software from the beginning unlike previously where it was getting stuck. Let’s see the steps to do that.

Fix Windows 10 Stuck on the Restart Screen

• Press Windows + X and then C to open Command Prompt (Admin).
• Type net stop wuauserv. Press Enter. This will stop the update service from running in the background.
• Now type cd %systemroot%. Press Enter. This command will navigate the command prompt to the installation directory of Windows OS.
• Type ren SoftwareDistribution SD.old. Press Enter. By this command, the OS will rename the SoftwareDistribution folder to SD.old for a backup. In case anything goes wrong, you can just go to the C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution and change it to its original name. You can also try clearing the data of SoftwareDistribution and Downloaded Installation folders.
• Lastly, type net start wuauserv. Press Enter. With this command, we will restart the update service in order to enable updates in the system.

By following the steps, Windows 10 will stop getting stuck on the restart screen like it used to. If you are having any problems with Windows 10 getting stuck on the start screen, even after following the steps, please let us know in the comments section so that we can help you.