My laptop won't shut off

[Erty]

I have a laptop that is taking forever to turn off (in fact, the other day it sat there for about 45 minutes before doing anything). Whenever I turn it off, I get a couple of those "this .exe is not responding" messages, so I am suspicious that my problem is a program or two that won't shut off.

Task manager won't let me manually stop tasks for some reason, so where do I go to keep these things from starting in the first place?

Thanks

Edit: I'm pretty sure that most of these programs that are giving me trouble are set to boot-up on start.

 

[__Camouflage__]

Start/Run/Regedit
HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop, Value Name: AutoEndTasks, Data Type: REG_SZ (String Value), Value Data: (0 = disabled, 1 = enabled). Modify the value of 'AutoEndTasks' to equal '1' to automatically end tasks or '0' to prompt for action. Note: This change will affect all users but the value can also be changed on a user-by-user basis by modifying [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop] with the same values. Will take care of the Not Responding Apps on shut down, but I highly suggest you DO NOT use it, unless you know what you are doin', if you want, you can backup your registry before and attempt it, NO MATTER WHAT! Always back up the registry before editing.

Start/Run/Regedit
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control. On the Edit menu, click Add Value. Value Name: WaitToKillServiceTimeout, Data Type: REG_SZ , String: In milli-seconds; default is 20,000. Ok/Exit/Reboot. This will also speed up the time for services to close PROPERLY before shut down.

These were found on http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_reg_edits.htm

 

[Erty]

Thanks for the prompt help.