I've found that if I click "update and shutdown" and hold the power button it shuts down, the update process is even quicker this way /S

Yep my work laptop is win11, this happens every time. I just wait till the end of the day, click update and shut down, let the dog out and then give her breakfast (I work nights) then go back and shut down from lock screen.

Meanwhile on my Linux laptop, "downloading critical system files" SUDO shut down, "whatever you say boss" and 10 seconds later it's off.

Dunno what to tell you, man. Update and shut down always works perfectly for me. It updates, restarts to finish the update, then shuts down. Works every time.

The only thing I can think of is that you're being impatient and manually shutting he machine down after the restart, instead just letting the OS do its thing.

I think it depends from the motherboard. My 8th gen Intel Lenovo always update and reboot (and get to the lock screen) when I say update and shutdown while a gigabyte 6th gen Intel always update and shutdown (one reboot during the update install)

And if you dual boot and have Linux set as main, "update and shutdown" means "reboot to Linux"