Windows XP shutdown issue

It sounds like it is waiting for a specific process to end, before finally forcing it to shut down.

For some reason this is not happening from the task panel though.

I would test closing items in your tool tray one at a time and then trying the START menu shutdown after each one. You may find that you close one item and then it shuts down from theSTART menu properly.

If not, you can also look for running processes you may not want running in the process manager window. Try ending those one by one before testing the START button shutdown, again this will identify any hanging issues with processes that just won't end.

You can use msconfig to identify and control all startup items and disable all the buggy processes you dont want running all the time.
Click [b]START>Run>[/b]and type [b]msconfig[/b] then press Enter to start configuration utility.
Here's some more info and explanations for you on using MSCONFIG:
http://netsquirrel.com/msconfig/

If you need help identifying a process you can go here and they have most listed:
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm

or here:

http://www.liutilities.com/products/wintaskspro/processlibrary/

If it's when you click Start->Shutdown and it pauses then it sounds like it's Windows waiting for memory space and/or processor time to bring its dialog handler to the desktop and prepare to shutdown processes and what not.

Here's a couple suggestions from me.

1) You have Norton...try turning off the autoupdater if you have it and see if that helps..it may be trying to get a connection from Norton to check the update list and have to timeout before Windows can tell it to standby.

2) If you have an nVidia graphics card, see if you have the nVidia Driver Helper Service running. if so, stop it.

If it were hanging after you'd clicked the shutdown from the dialog, I'd say it is clearing out a lot of pagefile info being cleared or hung process.

Try using the free online spyware remover by x-cleaner

http://www.spywareguide.com/txt_onlinescan.html

Then install easycleaner and clean your registry, add/remove programs, startup, ie temp, etc.

http://www.toniarts.com

These helped me and my company a lot

Niwroc

As you look in the task manager and select the running processes tab what all is running. Try stopping the running services one at a time.

See if its different without the network cable connected. That way you can safely stop the firewall and AV software.

Something you cn try. Back up your registry first.

Run regedit nd navigate to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

Modify the value of 'AutoEndTasks' to equal '1' to automatically end tasks.

The time-out before ending tasks is defined by the value of 'WaitToKillAppTimeout' located in the same key, this value is in milliseconds (default = 20000 i.e. 20 seconds). You can change this value to speed the process up.

Restart Windows for the change to take effect.

You mention scans with both Norton AV and AVG. If you have 2 or more anti-virus programs installed, that is likely the cause of shutdown delay.

Anti-virus programs do not co-exist well and you should have only one installed.

I actually prefer AVG since it does not degrade performance as much as Norton does.

Dalton

Turn off Power managment in the bios and windows control panel, When using the Start button Microsoft looks at that first, but when you use the Task button it does not care about power management.
Also you may want to disable one program at a time in MSCONFIG startup

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