Shut Down / Add or Remove Programs

[Jewels]

1. Sometimes when I chose to shut down XP (SP2) it logs me off and saves my settings but then it just stops at "...shutting down" (the blue screen). My computer stops processing anything and stays like that until I manually turn it off. When I turn it back on scan disk doesn't appear or anything. What could be preventing it from shutting down automatically.

2. Is there any way to remove an item from the Add or Remove Programs list without actually going through the uninstallation process? I'm trying to remove a program that worked on top of another program that I uninstalled first, and consequently the program couldn't be uninstalled since the required files were already removed from the first program uninstallation.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Amd64Boy]

do a system repair

 

[Win2kpatcher]

I too would reccomend a reapair and re-install all windows updates to see if that takes care of your shutdown problem.

As for the obsolete item in add/remove I usually just scan the registry for all entries of the program name and delete each entry. This isnt for the basic user though and you should use caution when in the registry Maybe someone has a directly link to the registry where the add/remove contents are located.

 

[EricB]

this seems to happen when you load a lot of programs on xp sp2. when you get to that point just hit the reset button

 

[Inaris]

I have found that a checkdisk usually correct this behavior. Also, updating your drivers will help, as it's possible that the machine is geting stuck on a driver.

As to the add/remove programs...

HKey_Local_Machine\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\uninstall
That is the key. You will need to make a backup of this before you do anything, so you can restore it if you need. Then look through the values to find the one you want. it's in display name that you will need to look under each key. MSI based installs will install with a GUID as the key name. Removing these is not something I would recomend, but do what you like...