Date: July 27, 2008
Since this common problem does not yet appear to have a published solution on the web, as of July 2008, and Microsoft technical support is not able to diagnose or solve this issue, I am sharing my solution to this issue in the hopes that it may be able to help others with the same problem. Since I have not thoroughly researched this issue, I can offer no guarantee or warranty that this information will be of any use, but I hope that it will. -Aaron W. LaFramboise
This issue applies to Vista x64 Ultimate SP1, and possibly other Vista configurations, that have multiple language packs installed. It is possible that this issue only affects dual core machines.
Note: There are apparently multiple conditions which can cause this, such as a power loss during update installation, or tampering with the online installer files. This report only addresses the issue related to language packs.
When attempting to add new Windows features, such as IIS, using "Programs and Features" in the Control Panel, the operation stalls for more than an hour on a message box that states "Please wait while features are configured. This might take several minutes." The progress bar stays at zero, and the Cancel button is inoperative. Eventually, the operation appears to time out, and a message box informs the user, "An error has occurred. Not all of the features were successfully changed."
This bug prevents the user from being able to add or remove any Windows features.
The TrustedInstaller.exe process can be seen using a large amount of resources during this time, and the event log is rapidly having Information events added to it of the form, "Windows Servicing started a process of changing package XXX state from YYY to ZZZ." Once the process has timed out, the event log will be populated with messages such as, "Windows Servicing failed to complete the process of setting package XXX into YYY state."
Also noteworthy is that the System File Checker (SFC) will take a very long time to run, presumably due to having to scan language packs.
This issue is caused by the installed language packs. It is unclear whether there are particular language packs that are causing the problem, or it's simply a matter of having too many of them installed. Most commonly people who report this issue have all of the language packs installed.
In any case, it appears that something about these language packs slows down TrustedInstaller such that whatever "configuration" Programs and Features is doing takes too long, and times out before it is completed.
Uninstall all language packs. If you have installed all of them, this may take a while. For some reason, attempting to uninstall more than one language pack at a time fails, so each language pack must be uninstalled individually. It is not necessary to reboot in between each uninstall; however, the more packs uninstalled at a time, the longer the eventual reboot will take.
After all language packs have been uninstalled, and the system has been rebooted, this problem should no longer manifest itself. If you still have this problem, it is probably not due to the same issue.
No fix to the bug appears to be available. The above workaround will stop the problem from occurring, at the expense of not being able to use all of the language packs.
Speculating, this bug is probably due to an inappropriate algorithm in TrustedInstaller that is not adequately scalable. Most likely, the complexity of this algorithm is quadratic or higher. As more files are added in the language packs, the time needed to "configure" increases quickly. A poor design may compound this problem, making it difficult to rewrite the code to use a more suitable algorithm.
As of July 27, 2008, Microsoft has not yet confirmed this issue, despite the fact that it has apparently been a widespread issue since April. Microsoft technical support is unable to solve this issue; they will however lead you through hours worth of non-solutions.
However, an employee who identified himself as associated with "Microsoft Research" claims that there are several known issues associated with the language packs. It's likely that the issues are due to the rush to ship these features to make the "Ultimate" version of Microsoft more attractive to potential buyers.