Windows 7 Update Stuck?

I noticed the little windows update avatar on the bottm right on my Windows 7, so decided to check out what the updates are and selected the 1 important update, and 1 optional. Then, it appeared that the update initiated, but only stated 0% complete and 0 data downloading. I waited for about 15 minutes, still nothing and then shut the program down and rebooted. After I rebooted, it took almost 3 times as long to boot up to my desktop. It starts up as normal with the cmos info etc., then the standard blue windows default opening screen with the little circle (like the old hour-glass) showing that something is happening, then the screen goes black for a few minutes, then finally boots up to the desktop. Next, I tried to manually go to the control panel and scroll down to windows updates, when I click on it, all it does is get stuck and I am unable to close the windows update window either manually or through task manager. I eventually have to restart in order to get rid of the windows and control panel windows.