strange message when shutting down Windows XP

[Guest]

I am running Windows XP PRo SP2.
When I go to shut down my PC, I have been seeing a windows box with no title
and this message:
"Windows is in the middle of a long operation".
I click the OK button, then try the shutdown again, and see the same message.
I moved my mouse and my system tray icons suddenly went away.
Finally, I went to shut it down again, and it shut down normally.
Is this the symptom of a virus, malware etc.?
I have seen no disk error messages pop up, but I also have NOT check event
logs yet.
Any help, hints, suggestions etc. would be appreciated.
Thank you.
Lou

 

[HeyBub]

I am running Windows XP PRo SP2.
When I go to shut down my PC, I have been seeing a windows box with
no title and this message:
"Windows is in the middle of a long operation".
I click the OK button, then try the shutdown again, and see the same
message. I moved my mouse and my system tray icons suddenly went away.
Finally, I went to shut it down again, and it shut down normally.
Is this the symptom of a virus, malware etc.?
I have seen no disk error messages pop up, but I also have NOT check
event logs yet.
Any help, hints, suggestions etc. would be appreciated.
Thank you.
Lou

You could try Task Manager to see what's going on that may be taking a long
time.

 

[Guest]

You could try Task Manager to see what's going on that may be taking a long
time.

I have looked at Task Manager and sorted the processes by CPU time, and it
is mainly System Idle that has more than 97% of the CPU. A couple of other
processes jump in and out at 1 and 2 percent, but nothing else comes up.
I am going to run some anti-spyware and virus checking programs to see if I
picked up something bad.