Help!!! My computer will not shut down properly!

[SuperShyGuy]

Every time I try and shut down my computer, the whole system just freezes. I haven't added any new programs to my system. I've run a scandisk, a defrag, and Ad-Aware 6.0. Still having the same trouble. If I press the reset button and then shut down right away, the system will not freeze up then.

I have Windows ME by the way.

Does anybody have a clue here? Help me out!

 

[CasusCoiti]

Does this only happen after you've run certain software that you may have been upgraded recently, such as Windows Media Player?

Have you tried shutting down once Windows is done loading, without running anything else?

Run msconfig and look at the startup tab. Anything there you don't recognize? Go ahead and uncheck everything except SysTray (and maybe ScanReg, if you're fine with the registry not getting checked on each boot). Reboot (you'll probably have your usual problem) and try shutting down once Windows is done loading.

 

[SuperShyGuy]

Does this only happen after you've run certain software that you may have been upgraded recently, such as Windows Media Player?

Have you tried shutting down once Windows is done loading, without running anything else?

Run msconfig and look at the startup tab. Anything there you don't recognize? Go ahead and uncheck everything except SysTray (and maybe ScanReg, if you're fine with the registry not getting checked on each boot). Reboot (you'll probably have your usual problem) and try shutting down once Windows is done loading.

As far as I know, I haven't updated anything recently, and I try to turn all automatic updates off.

I can shut down once it resets if I don't run anything else.

As for msconfig, let me try that.

 

[SuperShyGuy]

Hah. I ran msconfig.

Anything there you don't recognize?

How about all of it? I have no idea what I'm doing here and I'm not about to start turning stuff off if I don't know what it is.

 

[Johnny Mayberry]

Hah. I ran msconfig.



How about all of it? I have no idea what I'm doing here and I'm not about to start turning stuff off if I don't know what it is.

I've done that before...it can be tedious, but you probably won't fuck anything up.

 

[fgarvb1]

Um, SSG
Don't disconnect your keyboard as that could be...

Well, if you did you would not be reading this.

 

[SuperShyGuy]

Okay, I ran msconfig again and turned off the stuff I know for sure is not in any way essential, and things do seem to be working better. Hopefully that solves things for now.

 

[ChemE_student]

OMG! Mine does that, too! I think ME must just be batty!

 

[Weird Harold]

Every time I try and shut down my computer, the whole system just freezes. I haven't added any new programs to my system. I've run a scandisk, a defrag, and Ad-Aware 6.0. Still having the same trouble. If I press the reset button and then shut down right away, the system will not freeze up then.

I have Windows ME by the way.

Does anybody have a clue here? Help me out!

Two things to check:

1:
Are you shutting down individual programs first, or letting Windows close them? If you're not shutting them down individually, one of them may be corrupted and locking up when Windows calls the close function in the program before closing down windows.

If you can use Ctrl-Alt-Delete when the system is trying to shutdown, you can individually use "End Process" on the program that is causing the problem.

2:
Have you got any USB devices connected to your computer? Windows will try to close USB devices as it shuts down -- some devices will lock up windows if they are not turned on or not responding for some reason when it tries to shut down the USB devices.

Win ME has some very strange quirks with the USB drivers and some devices over-write the Win ME version when installed and cause strange problems like you're experiencing.

One final thought -- Win ME has a known memory management bug that can cause system lock-ups; downloading the patch to correct it might be in order if you haven't already. Your problem doesn't sound like a typicl manefestation of that bug, but it's a remote possibility.

 

[Weird Harold]

OMG! Mine does that, too! I think ME must just be batty!

Windows ME is by far the buggiest version of Windows so far. Upgrading to Win 2000 or XP is usually a good idea if you have any problems. Win ME is very finicky about maintenance and drivers and can be made to work for most users, but if what you use your computer for causes problems, upgrading (or even downgrading to Win 98 SE) will solve most of the quirks.

 

[ChemE_student]

If I upgrade, won't I have to reload every single program?

 

[Weird Harold]

If I upgrade, won't I have to reload every single program?

Probably Not.

It depends on what kind of computer you have -- some, like HP and Dell among others, don't like generic versions of Windows and you'll have to find a machine specific update.

However, most "Upgrade" Version allow you to go back to the orignal configuration if necessary. All of the Upgrade versions will copy your current configuration as much as possible, preserving usernames, start menu organization, startup folder, etc, so you should be able to upgrade without losing any programs or settings.

 

[Carnus]

Actually this is a fairly common issue with any of the Windows 9X seriers (including ME), you can find the offending program, dll or hardware piece, try making sure that all the updates are installed (www.microsoft.com/update) then if that does not work you are pretty well out of luck if you have followed the items people have talked about above, especially msconfig. I run XP on most of my systems and 2000 on the others and very seldom have this issue, but I have to warn you upgrading is not always the fix, some software and hardware just don't act like it should. You may have something that simply does not take the windows shut down command sequence. You will find XP or 2000 a much more stable and robust platform that the 9x series, but remember that they are not designed the same way and some software will simply not work with these versions. XP is a lot more flexible, but it still is designed as a network environment and is not as simple as ME to use since it has a higher security setup and is pickier about what you do to it sometimes. Personally I think XP is the best system Microsoft has come out with, but then again I use Linux as well.

Good luck

Patrick