All Windows Update Related Activity Hangs Service

I'm on a Dell XPS laptop (Windows 10 version 1909) When I try to check for updates, the progress indicator never stops working - it won't even finish checking. When running the Windows Update troubleshooter, the initial progress indicator (looking for pending restarts) never goes away. Stopping the Windows Update service leaves it stuck in the stopping state even after rebooting (I have tried various means of rebooting but am not sure if I have found one that actually forces the power all the way off given #2). Using taskkill to force the service to stop makes the service stop, but then we're

Question by BlueMonkMN on Super User, licensed CC BY-SA. We show a short excerpt and link to the original thread as credit.