Op Code Shutdown Degradation

[tryingtolearrn]

About 30% of the time when I click on shut down I get an error code that "The
following programs are still running....preventing your computer from
shutting down. I researched shutdown performance & followed the instructions
for the event viewer>applications &
services>Microsoft>Windows>Diagnostics-Performance>Operational. There are
jillions of errors, warnings, critical. Mainly listed as shutdown performance
monitoring, some boot performance monitoring & a few standby performance
monitoring. I examined some of the events & there are many, many different
file names involved. Mainly the end result saying, "Op Code Shutdown
Degradation". I'm on a notebook using Vista Home Basic 32 bit & I do not have
many files..should not be taxing the memory capability at all. Can anyone
give me feedback? Tell me what more you want to know & where/how I can find
the info. & I will provide it. Thanking you in advance.

 

[Ǝиçεl]

Have you tried running your recovery console or disk

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi Ann,

It's telling you that some third party software you've installed is not
responding to the terminate signal sent by the operating system when you
initiate a shutdown. Things to look at are software that was installed or
upgraded prior to the problem starting, and do not exclude your antivirus
software as it can be just as guilty as any other program on your system.
Alternately, you can try using Task Manager to manually kill selected
processes prior to initiating a shutdown until it works. Once it does, you
will know that one of the ones you killed is the culprit. It may take some
trial and error to isolate it, but once you know what is causing it,
addressing the issue becomes much easier.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[tryingtolearn]

Thank you Rick. I don't know how to manually kill selected processes on Task
Manager but I'm going in there & see if I can figure out how. Since I've
read so much about AVG affecting Vista (I have the paid AVG 8.5) I'm
wondering about that as the culprit BUT I had that for quite some time with
no problems before this 1 showed. My AVG doesn't expire till Sept. but I'm
thinking I should just "give up the ghost" & ditch it now in favor of Eset's
NOD 32 or Kaspersky (I think those are the 2 which are reputed not to
interfere with Vista???). I may have to come back & ask you how to kill
processes in Task Mgr. as I'm still tryingtolearn all this. Ann

 

[Questor]

Ann:

I really don't think that AVG is causing this. More likely some sort of
service or other background process that is not terminating when
commanded. I have had AVG on my Vista Home Premium for over six months
and never had a problem with it.

When in Task Manager, just highlight the process you want to terminate
and click the "End Process" button on the lower right. There will be a
warning, and, if you aren't sure, click Cancel instead of going ahead
and killing the process.

Questor


--->

 

[tryingtolearn]

Thank you for the feedback Questor. So let me get this clear...I would go
into the Processes Tab right? Now, since I don't know techno lingo yet; I
don't know what I'm killing. Well, some things are obvious but most are not.
Then the question would be: Can you list the items I should NOT mess with?
And I assume that the term "killing" only means shutting it down temporarily
until I turn the computer on again???

There is something else I should mention here. It seems this all began soon
after my ISP (who last Sept. was BellSouth then became ATT then paired ATT
with Yahoo--at least for the email and homepage) did the Yahoo thing. Could
THAT be causing the problem? I'm not sure how these type of things work &
don't know if that could effect this symptom. But, I haven't seen any
postings from other ATT customers stating this problem. I would think there
would be others with this symptom. ???????? Ann

Ann:

I really don't think that AVG is causing this. More likely some sort of
service or other background process that is not terminating when
commanded. I have had AVG on my Vista Home Premium for over six months
and never had a problem with it.

When in Task Manager, just highlight the process you want to terminate and
click the "End Process" button on the lower right. There will be a
warning, and, if you aren't sure, click Cancel instead of going ahead and
killing the process.

Questor


--->

 

[Grand_Poobah]

Well, Ann. I run Vista also but even then, everyone's system is
different so I wouldn't even begin to tell you what to "kill". Yes,
ending the process will only last until the next reboot. You are not
harming anything by shutting them down, except if they control something
like your video appearance your screen may 'jump' or 'go funny'. Not
bad enough to keep you from reading it, but noticeable nonetheless.

The Description column will give you a clue as to waht it does.

As far as narrowing down the possibilities, I would first run MSCONFIG.
This is done by clicking the Start orb and then clicking the Run
button. Enter the following:

MSCONFIG

and click OK. This will start up MSCONFIG which will let you select
which programs you want to run by going to the Startup tab. On this tab
are all the programs that will start up when your computer starts. Each
one has a checkmark in front of it. Make a note of which ones ARE
checked and which are NOT. Then, click the Disable All button. This
will ensure that none of them start up when you reboot.

Reboot the computer and open a couple of programs. Minor "funny things"
may happen because of the programs that are now not running in the
background but the main purpose is to see if you can shut down normally
without any problems. If you can shut down quickly (or much faster than
before) then one of the background programs you turned off in MSCONFIG
is the culprit.

Go back to MSCONFIG and re-enable each one of the previously checked
boxes one at time and reboot. It is time consuming, but if you find
which one is keeping your computer from closing down then do NOT check
it again. You then need to find out what that program does. I've found
that using Google and entering in the program executable name may give
you the best results on what the program does (if you can't tell
simply by looking at the name).

I'm betting you will find one (or more) programs that are messing with
your clean shutdown procedures. MSCONFIG is present in both XP and
Vista so it will work for you.

Check all this out for now. I'll be back in the morning because it's
quite late now for my old bones to be up.

Questor

--->

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi Ann,

Task Manager won't allow you to kill a critical process, you'll just get an
error message, so don't panic about that.

As to your thoughts on the ISP change, did they have you install any
connection software? Does the problem coincide with closing/opening the web
browser?

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[tryingtolearrn]

Yes Rick, they did have me go through an installation process. I did consider
the web browser closing/opening but the problem occurs even when I never open
IE. But I have my WinMail connected to my ISP email because I prefer the way
WinMail works, looks, & is organized (and has no ads, popups, or rollovers or
other junk on it) as opposed to my ISP's mail page. So wouldn't that make
some connection to the web browser? I also wondered if this could be a factor
in any way: The ATT/Yahoo mail uses Norton to scan for virus.
Sorry it's taken me so long to get back...normal life issues needed attention.
I would like to tell everyone how much I appreciate the input & instructions.

--
Computer newbie. Please use SIMPLE explanations. Thank you. Ann

Hi Ann,

Task Manager won't allow you to kill a critical process, you'll just get an
error message, so don't panic about that.

As to your thoughts on the ISP change, did they have you install any
connection software? Does the problem coincide with closing/opening the web
browser?

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[tryingtolearrn]

Problem solved Rick. Thank you very much! As I began the tedious process of
elimination, I kept thinking this was going to take forever. With each new
trial and error I was dreading the aching back & burnt retinas to come. Your
comment about 3rd party software being the most likely culprit kept echoing
through my mind. I had gone through 5 or 6 trials & then looked down the list
& spied the Google Desktop. I skipped everything else & went for the kill.
When it wouldn't stay dead long enough for me to click on shut down; I became
even more suspicious. I manually exited the Google Desktop on it's menu
before trying the shut down. Viola! Time & time again I tested it & had no
shut down errors. It had worked fine for so long without problems so then I
checked & found it had been updated right about the same time as ATT did the
Yahoo thing. The update must have caused it to go wacky for my system. It has
now been uninstalled. I didn't use it for much anyway--just the phase of the
moon & my local weather. I can get that somewhere else--or live without it.
No biggie. Thank you so very much. That had been driving me crazy for some
time. I would also like to thank the others who offered knowledgeable
assistance. Your instructions are things I'm sure to need in future & I won't
soon forget the lesson of using misconfig. Happy now.....tryingtolearn....who
just learned a few more things! All the best, Ann

 

[Questor]

--->

Problem solved Rick. Thank you very much! As I began the tedious process of
elimination, I kept thinking this was going to take forever. With each new
trial and error I was dreading the aching back & burnt retinas to come. Your
comment about 3rd party software being the most likely culprit kept echoing
through my mind. I had gone through 5 or 6 trials & then looked down the list
& spied the Google Desktop. I skipped everything else & went for the kill.
When it wouldn't stay dead long enough for me to click on shut down; I became
even more suspicious. I manually exited the Google Desktop on it's menu
before trying the shut down. Viola! Time & time again I tested it & had no
shut down errors. It had worked fine for so long without problems so then I
checked & found it had been updated right about the same time as ATT did the
Yahoo thing. The update must have caused it to go wacky for my system. It has
now been uninstalled. I didn't use it for much anyway--just the phase of the
moon & my local weather. I can get that somewhere else--or live without it.
No biggie. Thank you so very much. That had been driving me crazy for some
time. I would also like to thank the others who offered knowledgeable
assistance. Your instructions are things I'm sure to need in future & I won't
soon forget the lesson of using misconfig. Happy now.....tryingtolearn....who
just learned a few more things! All the best, Ann

Glad it all turned out fine Ann. Have fun.

Questor

 

[Rick Rogers]

Cool. And yes, google desktop is known to cause these problems, particularly
older versions of the software.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com