It Takes Two Times To Shutdown XP

[Guest]

When I click on "Start", "Turn Off Computer", then "Restart" or "Turn Off",
all I get is a quick screen flash. Nothing happens. The compute goes back to
normal operation with no hangs or errors.
When I perform the shutdown routine a second time, everything works fine. No
hangup, long waits, etc. Shutdown proceeds normally.
Being curious, I checked to see what programs and processes were shutdown,
if any, after the first attempts. I can't identify anything has been
shutdown. It's as if I never tried to shutdown. I have gone for hours after
going through the shutdown process once, and nothing odd happens. Yet, it
always shutsdown perfectly on the second try.
I did find an MS article that describes these symptoms perfectly. However,
the cause and solution doesn't apply to my situation. It appears that a
certain file loaded by Norton AntiVirus 2003 can cause this behavior; but
I've never had Norton AntiVirus on this machine. I am however running AVG
free edition.
Also, I don't know when exactly this problem manifested, because I
frequently go weeks before I need to shutdown or restart. I noticed it about
3 months ago and have off-and-on tried to find a solution without success. I
did perform a repair reinstall of XP (Home Edition), but that had no effect
on the problem.
Any thoughts, advise, guidance, etc. would be greatly appreciated.
TIA,

Lynn Livingston

 

[Ted Zieglar]

Look to Event Viewer for possible clues. Post back if you're not
familiar with using Event Viewer (or simply do a web search and look for
a tutorial.)

If event viewer is not helpful, you're going to have to go through a
potentially lengthy and tedious process of elimination:

"How to perform advanced clean-boot troubleshooting in Windows XP"
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;316434

Of course, if you have any other clues to share as to what might be
causing the problem, that could be helpful.

 

[Guest]

Unfortunately, Event Viewer acknowledges the event as a failure to shutdown.
Only advise from EV is basically "try again".
Can anyone describe the mechanism behind XP's shutdown routine? When a user
requests a shutdown, is there actually an executable file envoked, or maybe a
system built or maintained bat file?
I'm probably way over-simplifying things, but so far my gut feeling is that
the system must "think" the initial shutdown request was executed. Perhaps
there is a log other than event viewer that details what is taking place at
the initial shutdown request?
Can you tell I know less than nothing about how shutdown works? ; 0
TIA,

Lynn Livingston