How to Fix "Undoing Changes Made to Your Computer" — What's Really Happening and How to Resolve It

If your Windows PC is stuck on a screen that reads "Undoing changes made to your computer" — especially after a failed update — you're not alone. It's one of the more unsettling messages a computer can display, mostly because it appears with no progress bar, no time estimate, and no clear explanation of what went wrong.

Here's what's actually happening, why it gets stuck, and what options you have.

What Does "Undoing Changes Made to Your Computer" Actually Mean?

This message appears when Windows Update fails mid-installation and the operating system attempts to roll back to its previous state. Think of it as Windows hitting an undo button on itself.

When Windows installs an update, it creates a restore snapshot before making changes. If something goes wrong — a power interruption, a corrupted file, insufficient disk space, a driver conflict — Windows detects the failure and triggers an automatic rollback. The "undoing changes" screen is that rollback in progress.

The problem is that the rollback itself can get stuck, leaving your machine in a loop or frozen at that screen for an unusually long time.

How Long Is Too Long to Wait? ⏳

This is where most people make their first mistake: restarting too early.

A genuine rollback can take anywhere from 15 minutes to over an hour, depending on:

How large the failed update was
Your drive speed (HDD vs. SSD — solid-state drives process rollbacks significantly faster)
How much RAM is available for the process
The age and overall health of the system

General guidance: If you're on an SSD, waiting 30–45 minutes before taking any action is reasonable. On a traditional HDD, 60–90 minutes isn't unusual. If there's still visible disk activity (the drive light on your PC is flickering), the system may still be working.

Only if the screen has been completely frozen with no disk activity for an extended period should you consider intervening.

Why Does the Rollback Get Stuck?

Several factors can cause the rollback process to stall rather than complete cleanly:

Cause	What's Happening
Corrupted system files	Windows can't cleanly reverse changes to damaged files
Insufficient disk space	The rollback needs temporary working space on the drive
Driver conflicts	A third-party driver installed alongside the update interferes
Interrupted power	A previous shutdown during update left files in an inconsistent state
Failing hardware	A degraded HDD or RAM errors cause read/write failures mid-process

Steps to Fix a Stuck "Undoing Changes" Screen

1. Force a Restart (Last Resort — But Sometimes Necessary)

If you've waited a reasonable amount of time and the system shows no activity, a hard shutdown (holding the power button for 5–10 seconds) may be necessary. This carries a small risk of further file corruption, but a completely frozen system leaves few options.

After restarting, Windows may attempt the rollback again from scratch, or it may boot normally into the previous working state.

2. Boot Into Safe Mode or Windows Recovery Environment

If your PC restarts but loops back to the "undoing changes" screen repeatedly, you'll need to access the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE):

Force the computer off during startup three times in a row — Windows will automatically open the recovery menu on the fourth attempt
From there, navigate to Troubleshoot → Advanced Options

From Advanced Options, you have several tools available:

Startup Repair — lets Windows attempt to fix boot issues automatically
System Restore — rolls back to a restore point from before the problem began (only works if restore points were enabled)
Command Prompt — for running manual repair commands

3. Use Command Prompt to Repair System Files

Inside the WinRE Command Prompt, two commands are particularly useful:

sfc /scannow — scans and repairs corrupted Windows system files
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth — repairs the Windows image itself, which sfc relies on

Running DISM first, then sfc, is the recommended order. Both require some patience — they can take 20–40 minutes each.

4. Check Disk Space Before Attempting Updates Again

Windows updates — especially major feature updates — can require 10–20 GB of free space to install and create recovery snapshots. If your system drive was near capacity when the update ran, that's likely a contributing factor.

You can check and clear space using Disk Cleanup or by deleting old Windows installation files from the C:WindowsSoftwareDistribution folder (safe to clear after a successful boot).

5. Manually Remove the Problematic Update

If the system boots successfully after the rollback, you can prevent the same update from attempting again:

Go to Settings → Windows Update → Update History → Uninstall Updates
Identify the recently failed update by date
Uninstall it, then check Microsoft's support channels for known issues with that specific update before retrying

The Variables That Determine Your Path Forward 🖥️

How you resolve this — and how long it takes — depends heavily on your specific situation:

Drive type: SSDs handle rollbacks faster and are less prone to corruption during interruptions
Windows version: Windows 10 and Windows 11 have slightly different recovery interfaces and behaviors
Whether System Restore was enabled: Without prior restore points, that option simply won't be available
Hardware health: On an older machine with a degraded drive, the same steps may need to be repeated or escalated to a disk diagnostic
Technical comfort level: Some fixes (command-line repairs, manual file deletion) require navigating areas most users don't typically access

A setup with a healthy NVMe SSD, Windows 11, and System Restore enabled has a much smoother path through this problem than an aging laptop with a mechanical drive, low free space, and no restore points configured.

What you're working with — your hardware, your OS version, and what triggered the failure in the first place — will shape which of these steps applies most directly to your situation.