So say you have a Windows Update that isn’t finishing.  In the Windows Update Settings screen, beneath the update it says “Status: Awaiting Restart,” but you restart, and when you look it still says that.  Here’s the fix, collected from several different answers I found online:

First, you need an elevated command prompt.  Click start and type CMD in the search, but don’t press Enter; instead, right-click on the Command Prompt item that search should have found and choose Run as Administrator.  Say Yes to the prompt about making changes to your system… that’s exactly what we’re doing here.

Now you have a command window.  Enter the following commands one after another:

SC config wuauserv start= auto
SC config bits start= auto
SC config cryptsvc start= auto
SC config trustedinstaller start= auto

Now, restart your computer.  During the restart you should see the update actually running.