15 Problems That Your Plague Your PC
And How to Solve Them


--by Karen Kenworthy, Contributing Editor, Fred Langa, Senior 
Consulting Editor, John Woram, Consulting Editor, Serdar 
Yegulalp, Technology Editor


** Problem No 7: Windows won't shut down. **

Solution:
You should probably close all your apps yourself before you 
shut down Windows, but if you let Windows close things down and 
you never make it to the "It's now safe to turn off your 
computer" message, there are two ways to fix things, depending 
on your symptoms:

If the hangs are intermittent, press Ctrl+Alt+Del when your 
system hangs to bring up the Close Program box. (Note: Some 
third-party apps, such as virus scanners, run in the background 
and can prevent your system from shutting down. First, try 
disabling the app. If that doesn't work, uninstall it.) If an 
item is flagged Not Responding, select it and click End Task. 
If that doesn't work, or if nothing is flagged Not Responding, 
try the Shut Down button. If that also fails, power off your 
system. (Note: Run ScanDisk when your reboot.) Try to notice 
patterns to your intermittent hangs. Is the same app or 
subsystem hanging? If so, check the vendor site for a patch 
or update.

If your system hangs every time, you're probably running Win98. 
Win98 uses a Fast Shutdown process whereby it sends a shutdown 
signal to all running apps and services, and then proceeds 
without waiting for a response. Some apps and subsystems 
respond too slowly or require an additional step before 
completely shutting down. This can foul up the shutdown 
sequence and result in a hang. The solution is to disable Fast 
Shutdown. To do that, run MSCONFIG.EXE, click Advanced and 
check Disable Fast Shutdown. Click OK twice and reboot. Win98 
will now shut down in Win95's slower but sometimes more 
reliable fashion.

Some implementations of Win98's ACPI hang if you disable Fast 
Shutdown. This is a bug for which Microsoft is developing a 
patch. See:

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q196/0/08.asp

If disabling Fast Shutdown makes things worse, put them back 
the way they were by repeating the steps above, unchecking 
Disable Fast Shutdown and rebooting. If your original shutdown 
problem recurs, your only option is to wait for the patch and 
try disabling Fast Shutdown again once you install it.


 1998 Windows Magazine, April 1999, Page 112.