Vista eternal shutdown

This is a question I am confident has been asked and answered but I have
been unable to find the answer - maybe because I don't know the right
search terms.
Vista Home Premium
Sometimes when I try to shut down the PC - START-SHUTDOWN and either
shutdown or restart - the shutdown can take, literally, 60-75 minutes
and sometimes longer. Since I usually don't have that long to wait,
removing the power cord is an adequate substitute. I am, however, not
happy with that.
How can I eliminate these eternal shutdowns?

Hi, Jay.

> removing the power cord is an adequate substitute.

Well, it is a substitute - and very effective! But I certainly would not
call it "an adequate substitute".

Something is obviously wrong inside your computer and pulling the plug is
NOT going to fix that. You need to diagnose the problem and find the fix.
If you can't - or don't want to - do that yourself, then find a reliable
local repair shop (or a friendly geek) to do it for you. The answer MIGHT
be very simple - or not. Since we can't even see your machine, you will
have to give us a LOT more information before we can help much. We don't
even know the make and model.

It has been a few years since I had to use it, but my starting point for
troubleshooting shutdown problems has always been:
http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/shtdwnxp.htm

But that page apparently hasn't been updated since WinXP. Vista/Win7 users
seem to have such problems less often than users of prior Windows versions,
but a search for "vista shutdown problems" gets over 4 million hits in Bing,
and 3 million in Google, so there are plenty of places to try.

You said it happens "sometimes". If you post back, try to narrow that down
a bit. Is it only when a particular peripheral (printer, thumb drive,
network connection...?) is connected - or not connected? Is anything
running in the background? HOW do you give the shutdown command: Is it
always Start | Shutdown? Or push the computer's power button? Or close the
lid (we don't even know if this is a laptop computer)?

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

"j lunis" <> wrote in message
news:#...
> This is a question I am confident has been asked and answered but I have
> been unable to find the answer - maybe because I don't know the right
> search terms.
> Vista Home Premium
> Sometimes when I try to shut down the PC - START-SHUTDOWN and either
> shutdown or restart - the shutdown can take, literally, 60-75 minutes and
> sometimes longer. Since I usually don't have that long to wait, removing
> the power cord is an adequate substitute. I am, however, not happy with
> that.
> How can I eliminate these eternal shutdowns?

R. C. White wrote:
> Hi, Jay.
>
>> removing the power cord is an adequate substitute.
>
> Well, it is a substitute - and very effective! But I certainly would
> not call it "an adequate substitute".
>
> Something is obviously wrong inside your computer and pulling the plug
> is NOT going to fix that. You need to diagnose the problem and find the
> fix. If you can't - or don't want to - do that yourself, then find a
> reliable local repair shop (or a friendly geek) to do it for you. The
> answer MIGHT be very simple - or not. Since we can't even see your
> machine, you will have to give us a LOT more information before we can
> help much. We don't even know the make and model.
>
> It has been a few years since I had to use it, but my starting point for
> troubleshooting shutdown problems has always been:
> http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/shtdwnxp.htm
>
> But that page apparently hasn't been updated since WinXP. Vista/Win7
> users seem to have such problems less often than users of prior Windows
> versions, but a search for "vista shutdown problems" gets over 4 million
> hits in Bing, and 3 million in Google, so there are plenty of places to
> try.
>
> You said it happens "sometimes". If you post back, try to narrow that
> down a bit. Is it only when a particular peripheral (printer, thumb
> drive, network connection...?) is connected - or not connected? Is
> anything running in the background? HOW do you give the shutdown
> command: Is it always Start | Shutdown? Or push the computer's power
> button? Or close the lid (we don't even know if this is a laptop
> computer)?
>
> RC

HP Pavillion - desktop
The reason I chose 'sometimes' is I can't guarantee it is EVERYtime.
Shutdwn is ALWAYS by attempting START>SHUTDOWN first. Always power cord
2nd.
I have 4-6 apps open almost always - MS Outlook, Firefox, ThunderBird,
xplorer2. Internet Explorer is open frequently. I only shut down the
PC when forced to or when installing an update. Peripherals - have a few
but never connected/disconnected, umm, with the exception of synching my
cell which can be 2-3 times a day.
I'll check aumha.
Yeh, millions of 'hits' but, in this case, too many is just as bad as none.
FWIW, I have 2 minor annoyances that may or may not be related.
1) Saving the desktop. For years, a SD/SU would leave my icons on my
desktop where I had them. Now, on SU, they are all on the left of the
screen.
2) Systray (I hope that is the proper lingo. The area where the clock
is) I can set show/hide in properties/notification area, but Vista
ignores these and shows icons I have marked 'hide' and hides icons I
have marked 'show.'

You can enable auto end tasks in Vista, the same way you do in XP. Also make
sure your machine is not clearing the pagefile at shutdown, as that could
contribute to the problem.

eXXoTekK,

Are you going to inform us how to do those things or let us guess our way
through them?

Paul C.

"eXXoTekK" <> wrote in message
news:A48B917B-A8AC-4DF5-B6FB-...
> You can enable auto end tasks in Vista, the same way you do in XP. Also
> make sure your machine is not clearing the pagefile at shutdown, as that
> could contribute to the problem.

Let me guess, this is a 64 bit system, isn't it.
"j lunis" <> wrote in message
news:%...
> This is a question I am confident has been asked and answered but I have
> been unable to find the answer - maybe because I don't know the right
> search terms.
> Vista Home Premium
> Sometimes when I try to shut down the PC - START-SHUTDOWN and either
> shutdown or restart - the shutdown can take, literally, 60-75 minutes and
> sometimes longer. Since I usually don't have that long to wait, removing
> the power cord is an adequate substitute. I am, however, not happy with
> that.
> How can I eliminate these eternal shutdowns?