Johan said:
When I shut down Windows XP Pro the shutting down screen
appears while the system shuts down.. BUT the final "it
is now safe to turn off your computer" screen never
appears! What can I do to fix it?
Some program that is running in the background is refusing to exit
gracefully. You will need to Sherlock what is running by starting Task
Manager and looking at the Programs and Processes tabs and finding out
what is running. Then try troubleshooting with a clean boot. Here are
links to help you:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=310353 - How to Perform
a Clean Boot in Windows XP
And places to look up the names of programs:
http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_index.htm
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm
And of course, you will have done the usual:
1) scan with current antivirus ("current" means a version not earlier
than 2002 but using updated virus definitions); 2) remove spyware with
Spybot Search & Destroy (
www.safer-networking.org) and Ad-aware
(
www.lavasoftusa.com). These programs are free, so use them both since
they complement each other. You may also want to run the latest
CWShredder and HijackThis from
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/index.html
Unfortunately, CWShredder is not being updated, but the current version
will still remove older variants of CoolWeb Search malware. Always read
the instructions before running a spyware removal tool. Be sure to
update these programs before running, and it is a good idea to do
virus/spyware scans in Safe Mode.
Malke
