Slow XP shutdown

What was the last software/hardware you installed?. Also, have you updated ad applied Windows' patches?

USB devices are always a killer on startup/running/shutdown on Windows XP. My experience in the past has been the odd dodgy USB router, which was only affecting some devices. Try changing the devices ports and slowly removing them one by one if you don't get any joy.

http://home.earthlink.net/~leetutor/ruXP/Misc/speedup.htm

Try the two things listed on the above mentioned site. One requires registry editing, however I have used this method in the past to much success.

Many times Windows XP is forced to wait for programs to exit before it can shutdown. This registry value dictates how long it will wait for a program to close before it forces it too. By shortining the wait time, it should speed up your shutdown...

This situation normally comes up when one or more appl. running in the background interfers with the shut down process.

Try to disable unwanted background application from,

Start - Run, type MSCONFIG and enter, click startup tab and uncheck the unwanted background loades, click apply & OK, Restart the computer.

Also, try to download/install/run the Ad-aware software that can check and remove the spyware/adware files that can cause these problems as well.

It can be downloaded from,

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

I would start troubleshooting this problem by looking at the processes running in task manager. Your best chance of fixing it will be by determining which active process is causing the delay and also which ones are not needed. Try http://www.answersthatwork.com as a start to identify the active ones. Don't fiddle with registries and hardware until you have worked through the active processes. The suggestion about removing addware or spyware is probably spot on.