Pc taking a while to shut down

[Barndog]

Hi and merry christmas to everyone, ok so for the last 3 or 4 days my pc has taken ages to shut down, last night it wouldnt even shut for me, i have de-fragged and i run constant health checks to keep it in good order, anyone any suddestions why its behaving like this all of a sudden...thanks

[Glenn]

Have you checked for mal/spyware? www.malwarebytes.org or www.superantispyware.com are both good

[Sebby]

Can you think of anything you've installed/updated recently, Barndog, that may be the culprit?

[Barndog]

Thanks guys, i ran the scans Glen had recommended and unfortunately still the same, Sebby i have not installed anything new recently, but windows updates always appears and when i try to update it says i need to insert a disc? it says its for microsoft office 2003, i dont have any discs to inset so i cant update, and the reminder for the update just wont go away from bottom of desktop,thats round about the time the pc started playing up?

[Sebby]

Are you running SP2 still? I wonder if it's worth installing SP3 (the full installer) as this will update a lot of the core system files, which could sort things out.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5B33B5A8-5E76-401F-BE08-1E1555D4F3D4&displaylang=en

[Rik]

Or cause other problems.

[Sebby]

Or that.

[Barndog]

Im actually dubious to install sp3 because i read before that it can cause amd machines harm, unless its sorted out now, i would be wary...thanks again

[Rik]

So have you run a malware scan?

[Glenn]

Barndog, take a look at Dial-a-fix http://wiki.lunarsoft.net/wiki/Dial-a-fix it looks like it may help, it hasn't been updated in a while though.

[Glenn]

Another thought, what happens if you start in 'Last known good configuration' or safe mode?

[Barndog]

Looking good Glenn, i did the last known configuration and tried it, shut down first time, then left it a while and tried again, so far so good,thanks again to all that helped...merry xmas

[Rik]

Great news, Barndog. Merry Christmas to you too. 

[Sebby]

Greats news, Barndog.

[Glenn]

Good to see something I said works 

[Rik]

I said "Sue" and she is...

[juiceuk]

I found that Microsoft User Profile Hive Cleanup Service (UPHClean) fixed my shutdown problems. I find it's worth installing on everyones PC that I help out with. This is not needed if you have vista as this functionality is now built in to vista. If you plan to upgraded to vista from XP this will need to be  uninstalled first.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=1B286E6D-8912-4E18-B570-42470E2F3582&displaylang=en#Requirements
Supported Operating Systems: Windows 2000; Windows Server 2003; Windows XP

[Rik]

I agree with you on UPHClean, Juice, I always install it. 

[Sebby]

Never heard of it, so thanks.

[Rik]

It's usually worthwhile, Seb, at least in my experience.