Windows Shutdown Problems

At some point or another most of us have experienced problems when shutting down Windows. What many of us don't know is the amount of things that could cause a problem on shut down. This article will show the most popular reasons for windows for not shutting down correctly. Some of these are version specific, if this is the case it will be stated at the start of the section.

• Disable Fast Shutdown

• Temporary Folders

• Exit Sound File

• Configuration files

• Start up Programs

• Windows File System

• Use Bootlog.txt

To do this you must firstly launch MSCONFIG (click the start button and select run then type MSCONFIG in the command box) Once MSCONFIG has loaded select the advance TAB. From here you will see the option to disable windows fast shutdown. You will want to check this box. If the box is already checked you may be using the wi98 shutdown patch already which permanently disables fast shutdown.

Manually clearing temporary files can help the computer shutdown. Temporary files could be internet files, downloaded files or files left on the computer from crashes or improper shutdowns in the past. Try clearing the temporary Internet files, the Windows TEMP folder and MSDOWNLOAD.temp folder.

Strange as it sounds while researching on the internet it seems that a damaged sound file set for the windows exit could cause the system to hang before it shuts down. In this instance you want to check the sound that is set for windows exit. Try playing the sound file. If it plays successfully then the file is OK.

(Windows ME) - In Windows ME it has been reported on several Windows help sites that not having a windows exit sound at all can cause a system lock up. Strange this one and one I haven't been able to back up myself, but worth a try.

There are quite a few configuration files in Windows of all versions. Problems in these can certainly cause many problems and are worth looking at for possible problems. For Windows 95/98 you will need to look at you autoexec.bat file and config.sys file. Firstly rename these 2 files to autoexec.old and config.old. Now restart the computer and attempt a shutdown. If your shutdown was successful then you may have a problem in one of these files.

In order to find out what the problem is, rename the files back to autoexec.bat and config.sys and restart the computer, as windows starts press the ctrl key (ME and 98 - press F8 in Win 95) and hold it until the boot menu appears. From this menu select step by step confirmation. Now press yes on the first command that appears from the list and press no for the rest. (only commands from the config.sys and autoexec.bat files press Y for the others or windows will not start)

Now test the shutdown again. Each time the shutdown is successful try it again but accept another line from the step by step confirmation. The time that Windows does not shut down correctly you have found which line is causing the problem. You can either out REM in front of this line to disable it or remove it altogether.

In Windows ME you can use MSCONFIG to disable the commands one by one, this is quicker and easier than the step by step confirmation method used in Win 98.

* Note - Always keep back ups of these system files just in-case you change something wrong

You may also want to take a look at the system.ini and win.ini files. In system.ini you will be looking for the 386ehn section. In here there will lines that start with DEVICE= and ends in 386. Placing a semicolon in front of these lines will disable them or using MSCONFIG again you can use check boxes to disable this section. Now test the shutdown again to see if this has helped. Bear in mind you will want to fix this problem rather than leave it disabled, contact your hardware vendor once you have isolated the problem.

Win.ini is another file that contains possible errors. The lines that you are looking for here begin with RUN= or LOAD=. Using MSCONFIG again you can disable the lines one by one to see if you can isolate the problem.

Everytime Windows starts up, a number of programs within the start menu are automatically loaded. As these are programs which are loaded everytime the computer starts and I'm guessing you have these shutdown problems consistently then these could be the source of the shutdown errors. Again using MSCONFIG you can select selective start up and uncheck the box which says load start up group items. Restart the computer and then attempt another shutdown. If the system hangs on shutdown then this is not your problem. If you have a successful shutdown then load MSCONFIG again and select the start up tab. using the method used in the other steps isolate the problem by only allowing one program to load at a time. Restart the computer each time so a different program loads up until you isolate the problem.

Right click on My Computer and select properties. Now click on the performance tab and then select file system. You will be faced with a number of check boxes for various items. Check all the boxes and restart the computer. Once the computer has loaded again test the shutdown. If the shutdown is successful then its likely the problem is file system related.

To isolate the problem uncheck the boxes one at a time, testing the shutdown each time. until the shutdown fails and you have found the problem.  

bootlog.txt can help you identify the problem. to create a bootlog.txt file on start up press the ctrl key while booting to bring up the boot menu. From here select bootlog.txt and continue with the startup. Now attempt a shutdown. next time you start the computer you will have a bootlog.txt file to examine. At the end of the bootlog.txt file you will have entries that start with TERMINATE=. These should have a corresponding ENDTERMINATE= line for a successful shutdown. The last line should read ENDTERMINATE=KERNEL.

If the last line reads something else then see if it looks like one of the lines below.

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