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I've got a Generation 2 VM running Windows 8.1. It has secure boot disabled and lists the VMs version as 5.0. Hyper-V itself is version 6.3.9600. This morning, about 4 hours ago, it started a Windows Update and rebooted. While I was connected to it I could see the message along the lines of "Windows is making configuration changes, do not turn off your computer".

I left it running and my connection to it timed out. Now I can't connect to it anymore. When I try to connect, it refuses with the message: "Video Remoting was Disconnected"

The "Heartbeat" says "OK (Applications Healthy)" so I'm guessing I wont be able to connect until it's finished the update but I'm starting to wonder if it's just hanging or crashed.

Is there a way of telling if it's really making any progress with the update? Should I risk turning it off and then on again?

Thanks

Update: I have one error in my Application Event Viewer, complaining that mshta.exe was suffering from an "Application Hang" error:

The program mshta.exe version 11.0.9600.17416 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Action Center control panel.
 Process ID: d00
 Start Time: 01d12759efc5df70
 Termination Time: 4294967295
 Application Path: C:\Windows\System32\mshta.exe
 Report Id: d67f2d18-94f8-11e5-827e-00224d54c8e2
 Faulting package full name: 
 Faulting package-relative application ID:

Not sure if it's a coincidence or not but it occurred around the time I noticed my VM hanging.

Richard
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  • You should be able to remain connected to the VM's console throughout the update and reboot. Something else is going on here. Please review your question and add any missing details. – Michael Hampton Nov 27 '15 at 12:58
  • Trying to get some more info. I'm new to Hyper-V so just figuring out what diagnostic information is available to me. – Richard Nov 27 '15 at 13:50
  • Newer Hyper-V releases automatically use RDP (if possible) to access guest VMs instead of the emulated console, for better performance; however, this won't work (of course) if the guest O.S. has disabled RDP, f.e. due to being busy installing updates. And yes, sometimes Hyper-V is not very good at detecting this and still tries to use RDP even when it shouldn't. – Massimo Nov 27 '15 at 15:12

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I ended up restarting the PC that the VM was running on, and it seemed to recover. After that, I was able to connect to the VM and I was able to catch the final few minutes of the Windows Update as it completed.

As I posted as an update in the original question, there was an 'Application Hang' in the Event Viewer (of the host PC, not the VMs Event Viewer) which I suspect was the cause.

This isn't a very good answer but at least it does confirm that it is possible to do a restart while a VM is half-way through a Windows Update and it will carry on updating when it comes back up, rather than bricking the VM, which I hope is helpful to someone if they run into the same problem.

Richard
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