shutdown problem

[Gafoor B]

I’m using this Windows XP system for about past 1.5 years and never had any problem until a month ago. Since a month now, whenever I try to shut down the system I use to get a message saying ‘program not responding’. This happens every time I try turning off the system. Apart from this the PC works fine, no problem.

The related programs for which the error appears are such as network associates error reporting service, McAfee updater, Hsm Sink Window, Ati tray icon application, DIEmWin, Acrobat try icon, kmw_run.exe", etc. I mean how come so many programs all together can become unresponsive. When I click on the button saying End Now, windows moves ahead and freezes again.

Now it shows me two more error messages saying "program not responding dialogs": "ctfmon.exe" and "explorer.exe." After ending these two tasks my computer finally shuts down. So I need to go through such as long process in order to shutdown my computer . Isn’t it annoying? Yes it is.

DO anyone of you guys have any solution for this? All suggestions appreciated.

[Oshea]

Well the solution for this issue is very simple. You just need to make a small change in registry and the problem will be gone. Start by clicking Start Menu, Click RUN, type Regedit and press Enter. Now the navigate to the following location:

HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop

Here on the right pane, you will find an entry called “AutoEndTasks.”. Simply right click the same and change its value from 0 to 1. Close and exit the registry.

You are done. There is also an alternate way for troubleshooting this shutdown problem. You can follow the fix provided on the following article: http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/shtdwnxp.php

[Scott2580]

Probably there would be some problem in your user profiles as well. I had this problem once and I fix the same using UPHClean v1.5e. UPHClean is a service that once and for all gets rid of problems with user profile not unloading. You are having profile unload problems if you experience slow logoff (with Saving Settings for most of the time while logging off), roaming profiles that do not reconcile, or the registry size limit is reached.. You can download UPHClean from here.

Apart from this I would also suggest you to download and install a Microsoft tool called “User Profile Hive Cleanup Service”. This will help you lot. You can download the same from Microsoft Download Center here .