Shutdown crashes on newly formatted pc

[dcarmor]

I have formatted a couple computers before, and this one has gone perfectly fine except for one issue. After installing appropriate drivers and all, and restarting when prompted, I installed the Windows Installer 3.1 and Security Update KB898461 through Automatic Updates. By the way, I am running SP2.

After installing them, I am asked to restart. And every time I restart now (or shut down), the system hangs on the "Windows is shutting down..." screen. So I hold down the button and restart. I have never gotten a "widows did not shut down properly" window. It appears it simply doesn't power off at the very end of its shutdown cycle.

This happened the first time I reformatted last night. This morning I formatted again, and I have the same problem.

And if I do a system restore to the moment before I used Automatic Updates and installed the two updates, the computer shutsdown properly.

I do not think it is damaging my computer by not shutting down properly, but I'd prefer to have it working.

I have not installed anything apart from ewido antispyware, firefox, nvidia driver 91.47, nforce4 motherboard driver, and directx.

Thanks for the help!

[CurlyWhirly]

Any help? http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/shtdwnxp.php

[Scarecrow Man]

Is Windows installing the updates as it is shutting down? This process can sometimes take several minutes.

You will see something like this:

followed by a screen telling you the progress, and not to turn off or unplug your computer.

[dcarmor]

Ok here's an update. I check out that website, and though it did not appear to help, it got me thinking in new ways. What I did was reboot in safemode...it hung up of course during restart, so I pressed the button and safe mode booted up. I restarted from safe mode, back into safe mode again and it worked perfectly. So, I figured there is some process that is hanging up the computer when in normal mode. So I wrote down each process in safe mode and compared the list to that of normal mode. I narrowed it down to a couple, and now believe the culprit to be alg.exe

If I end the process and then restart, the computer acts just as it should act. I don't know how this is connected with Windows Installer 3.1 or KB898461 (which is when I first encountered this problem). Unfortunately, doing a google search reveals that alg.exe may be an essential process for certain programs, and disabling it may make my system unstable.

And, no, I do not think Automatic Updates itself to be responsible. It has not been downloading/installing upon shutdown, and I have temporarily turned it off--the problem remains.

Any suggestions?

[Scarecrow Man]

Have you tried reinstalling Windows Installer?

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en