Windows cannot shutdown

…Or it may stop, but it doesn’t shutdown properly. Either it sticks part way through or crashes and reboots. There is a sizable list of possible causes, including a bad device driver, hardware problems and a corrupted shutdown sound file.

List of bad device driver or bad device itself causing shutdown problems :

Modems, network cards, sound cards, motherboards that does not properly support APM, motherboards that does not properly support IRQ sharing. When starting Windows you will see a list of devices with their IRQ settings, some holds the same IRQ. You will have to try and set the IRQ of one of the devices to a unused one manually or remove it.

Wrong VGA driver will also cause shutdown problem.

Another step that you can try is to go to Add/Remove Hardware in Control Panel and do a automatic detect for new hardware. This will sometime cure the shutdown problems caused by misbehaved hardware.

You can also try this method which I found on one of the forums. On your desktop, create a shorcut. For the application (or target), type:

"C:\WINDOWS\RUNDLL32.EXE User,ExitWindows"

(without the quotes)

When clicked on, this shortcut will immediately shut down Windows without prompting.

If this fails to shut down the system properly, use SFC and replace RUNDLL32.EXE and try it again. If there is still a problem, then scan the registry using SCANREG/FIX.

Microsoft had to issue an update to cure a spate of shutdown problems with Windows 98 Second Edition. Even the update had to be updated.

It’s available from www.microsoft.com/Windows98/downloads/contents/WURecommended
/S_WUFeatured/Win98SE/Default.asp.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work. A series of guides to shutdown problems is available in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: Q196008; Q202633 for Win98 or Q238096 for Win98 SE; Q239887 for SE only; Q187607; Q181966; Q231666; Q193677.

There is also the start-up and shutdown troubleshooting wizard at Microsoft's site, just type in your problem in the search bar.

1. Fixing Windows problems	7. Dialup prompt when Windows starts
2. Windows cannot start	8. Stack overflow error
3. Windows cannot shutdown (this page)	9. Files associated with wrong programs
4. Cannot do disk defrag	10. Explorer opens on startup
5. DLL errors	11. Illegal filenames
6. Dialup password not remembered	12. Maintenance tips the expert use

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