[Glorfindal]

What should I do? Every time I tell my computer to turn off, stand by or restart it goes to the blue screen like normal (I have an XP OS) and says "preparing to stand by" or shutdown (depending on what I click of course) and just stays on that screen I let it stay there for about 20 minutes once when nothing happened I got so exasperated that I just pressed the button on the computer. Do you have any ideas? TIA.

[IngeniousHax]

My vomputer does this some times (vista), and IDK what the culprit is, but I reloaded it, and a lot fo my problems went away. I just did a clean install and a lot of my problems went away rather.

[Gorian]

try opening your run dialog, and typing shutdown -s -f

I have found that that sometimes works when a normal shutdown doesn't. Make sure to include both switches.

[Glorfindal]

Thank you for your opinions I would prefer not to do a clean install becasue I have some very expensive applications that have a limited amount of loads. (Maybe as a last resort.) Glorian I haven't tried your idea yet, but I think I need a more permanent solution because I don't want to have to turn it off that way everytime I need to shut it down. It becomes inconveniant.

I'm looking for what's causing it. So that I know what to do to fix it.(Just saying I don't have a whole lot of free ram left like 300 mb, or less.)

Last, some information I forgot to put in my first post. This problem has persisted for the last few days, and I don't believe is a one time failure. As I said before this computer has very little ram left but is maxed out so I can't install more. I am wondering if this could be a RAM problem. But I don't think so because the little I know about turning on and turning off computers is that turning on takes more ram, and it turns on fine. Any ideas? TIA.

[no2pencil]

There are some timer values in the Windows XP Registry that you can change to a much shorter timeout period. If you are familiar with the Windows Registry, give the following a try :

Quote

Open REGEDIT and navigate to ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\’
Highlight the ‘WaitToKillAppTimeout’ value.
Set it to ‘1000'.
Now highlight the ‘HungAppTimeout’ value
Set it to ‘1000' also.

The second part of this tip changes the same settings, this time for all users on the system.

Open REGEDIT and navigate to ‘HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control

Panel\Desktop’
Highlight the ‘WaitToKillAppTimeout’ value.
Set it to ‘1000'.
Now highlight the ‘HungAppTimeout’ value.
Set it to ‘1000' also.

In the third part of this tip, we will alter a second registry setting to decrease the amount of time Windows XP will wait before shutting down active services after receiving a shut down command.

Open REGEDIT and navigate to

‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\’

Highlight the value ‘WaitToKillServiceTimeout’

Change this value to ‘1000.’

[Pwn]

what No2Pencil is saying is that there are processes that refuse to die. What you can do is after 5 minutes of waiting for the pc to turn off, see if you can open the task list by hitting CTRL+ALT+DEL and see what processes are left running. These processes are most likely what is causing your pc to not shutdown. If you don't know what the processes are, you can either Google them, or get a program called Process Explorer that will give you all kinds of information on the processes you have running.

[Glorfindal]

Okay I'll try that. I was wondering though could this problem cause any damage to my computer?

[Glorfindal]

Pleae I would like to know. If this problem persists could it be a symptom of a greater problem? I have Norton Internet Security so I figure it can't be a virus.

[KYA]

Not necessarily. Steam causes my computer to hang on occasion. I'd try the thing suggested above before we hypothesize anymore.

Norton doesn't fare too well on malware and such. Run Malware Bytes Anti Malware and Microsoft security essentials, both are pretty decent.

[no2pencil]

Just because Norton has not found a virus, doesn't mean that you don't have one. Some of the machines that come into my shop for virus cleanings have Norton. Most have AVG, but some have Norton. I would double check it with another antivirus program. Or check your system with superantispyware, as malware can cause the same thing.

I don't suggest this often, but I think you should probably just backup & reinstall Windows. If this is going to be anything like your webhosting topic, you seem to be waiting for the magic answer, & not open to possibilities. Sorry, not trying to be mean, just saying it might be easier to just format & reinstall Windows.

[Glorfindal]

What is Superantispyware? I just don't like the free antivirus software's because I feel they could be viruses. Infact norton when it runs it's virus scan says checking for traces of AVG. I already said why I don't want to reinstall my OS. Also if I had Malware would there be any other symptons? Could you list them? So I could see if my computer matches any of them.

[Glorfindal]

Pwn, on 21 Nov, 2009 - 09:21 AM, said:

what No2Pencil is saying is that there are processes that refuse to die. What you can do is after 5 minutes of waiting for the pc to turn off, see if you can open the task list by hitting CTRL+ALT+DEL and see what processes are left running. These processes are most likely what is causing your pc to not shutdown. If you don't know what the processes are, you can either Google them, or get a program called Process Explorer that will give you all kinds of information on the processes you have running.

Okay that sounds like a good idea. Though last night I tried that and the problem is when it has the blue screen that says Windows XP is shutting down, I clicked CTRL + ALT + DELETE and it didn't respond probobly because it wasn't on my desktop. Any ideas?

[Mr.Janson]

check out your system log and see if there are any errors around the time that you last shut down.

[Glorfindal]

Mr.Janson, on 23 Nov, 2009 - 05:09 PM, said:

check out your system log and see if there are any errors around the time that you last shut down.

Where do I find the system log?

[Mr.Janson]

Glorfindal, on 23 Nov, 2009 - 05:36 PM, said:

Mr.Janson, on 23 Nov, 2009 - 05:09 PM, said:

check out your system log and see if there are any errors around the time that you last shut down.

Where do I find the system log?

you want to open control panel and go to admintools , system tools