Lagging restart?

[kv8]

I've been having this problem for awhile now.. and still haven't found an answer to the cause..

I'm running windows XP, and I suffer from hugeeee shutdown times. When I restart my computer, log off, turn it off etc. it takes almost 10 minutes sometimes and I'm not sure why..

I'm not totally computer illiterate but I'm not so knowledgable either so any help would be appreciated.

 

[brady]

You should start by scanning your machine for spyware/adware and viruses...

 

[Juice Daddy]

do you own a windows xp installation cd?

if so, then you could try a windows repair...
(might save for last resort if nothing else works)

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does your computer have a slow startup to?

Start > Run type: msconfig

then click the startup tab, and uncheck programs that you don't use , or would rather start manualy...

one of these might be takeing too long to end when windows is shuting down...

 

[kv8]

I use spyware doctor and kaspersky as anti-spyware/virus/adware...

My computer is clean as far as I know.. and also another thing I seem to have noticed is that I can't switch users..

 

[Inaris]

try to find bootvis and run that. it should help you a little with finding what is going on. Also, look for newer drivers that you can install. Usually shutdown is slowed by a driver that won't release or terminate on time. It's something I've been working a few weeks with the machines I support.

Good luck

 

[EricB]

try to find bootvis and run that. it should help you a little with finding what is going on. Also, look for newer drivers that you can install. Usually shutdown is slowed by a driver that won't release or terminate on time. It's something I've been working a few weeks with the machines I support.

Good luck

Bootvis is known to make your boot time longer with SP2. it only works on sp1 and before. now that's my 1 liner

 

[EricB]

I use spyware doctor and kaspersky as anti-spyware/virus/adware...

My computer is clean as far as I know.. and also another thing I seem to have noticed is that I can't switch users..

check in your network properties, right click you lan and select properties. check to see if you have novell (or netware) client for windows installed. uninstall it.

 

[kv8]

check in your network properties, right click you lan and select properties. check to see if you have novell (or netware) client for windows installed. uninstall it.

I checked, and.. neither are installed. Thanks for the suggestion though..

 

[Inaris]

Shutdown time is directly related to drivers and applications that are running when you shutdown. The only way to speed it up, is to find the driver/application that is taking longer than it should to shutdown.
Although Bootvis doens't help an SP2 machine, that is if you are running SP2, it might give you some insite into the issue. You need to get a trace of what is happening at a time when it's pretty hard to monitor a system.
I suspect that the problem is a driver, but it's possible it's an application that just doesn't want to die.

Something else you can do is this:
Change the WaitToKillAppTimeout value in HKey_Current_User\Control Panel\Desktop to something smaller. should be at 20 (milliseconds).

Also read this and see if it applies.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;822738

 

[10-79]

I had a stick of memory that was going bad once and it made my machine take a long time to shut down or restart. The stick of memory finally went totally bad and made the computer shut down or I'm not sure I would have ever figured it out. The computer would work fine one day, then the next it was really slow. I thought usually memory would either just work or not, but this took a week or two before it totally quit, at which point the machine let me know that I had a problem the next time I restarted it. It was pretty strange.

If I were guessing I would have suggested what Greg and Inaris suggested. You said you can't change users, though, which makes me wonder if you don't have some sort of spyware or adware on your comp that's keeping you from doing so. This happened to my mother-in-law, she had a trojan horse that wouldn't let her change to her Admin user status.