Windows Xp wont restart or shutdown

[hounddog]

I have had Windows XP Professional 32 bit SP3 for 3- 4 months now and i have always had a problem with shutting down and restarting. When I go to shutdown or restart it just shows my background and it stays like that. I left my laptop on all night once to see if it was just slow but after 8 hours it still just showed the background. For 3 months i had just been turning my laptop off by pressing down the power button which im sure is not good for my laptop.

When i installed Windows Xp professional I had trouble trying to find the right drivers for my sound card, I search all over the internet and on the Dell website for drivers but none of them worked. On one forum I found out that if you trick windows into thinking the version of windows XP into thinking it was SP2 you could install these drivers. The only thing i remember about this is that i changed the value of something from 300 to 200. When i go onto my computer information it says Windows SP2. I had this problem even before i did this but im sure it is not helping the situation.

I am using a Dell XPS M1710

Does anybody have any idea's, if you need me to give anymore information on the issue i am more than will to help.

[pawz7]

I have had Windows XP Professional 32 bit SP3 for 3- 4 months now and i have always had a problem with shutting down and restarting. When I go to shutdown or restart it just shows my background and it stays like that. I left my laptop on all night once to see if it was just slow but after 8 hours it still just showed the background. For 3 months i had just been turning my laptop off by pressing down the power button which im sure is not good for my laptop.

When i installed Windows Xp professional I had trouble trying to find the right drivers for my sound card, I search all over the internet and on the Dell website for drivers but none of them worked. On one forum I found out that if you trick windows into thinking the version of windows XP into thinking it was SP2 you could install these drivers. The only thing i remember about this is that i changed the value of something from 300 to 200. When i go onto my computer information it says Windows SP2. I had this problem even before i did this but im sure it is not helping the situation.

I am using a Dell XPS M1710

Does anybody have any idea's, if you need me to give anymore information on the issue i am more than will to help.

hound dog, there are a number of things you can do to help identify the culprit of the delays.

Pressing F8 on boot and then opting for Safe Mode is the first thing you could try as that will load minimum system drivers, so if the problem lies in 3rd-party software, you should not experience an undue delay on safe-mode startup as they will not be loaded.

Then you could go into Start-Run-msconfig,click on the startup tab and untick all the boxes, apply and come out, and then reboot normally to see if you still get the delay on startup.

If not (though it will be a bit faster anyway if you have unticked every box), then that suggests the problem is to do with something that is being loaded at startup rather than a system file. You could try putting the ticks back one at a time to try and recreate the problem - if you have the patience! Whatever delays the startup is probably the same thing that delays the shut-down.

It would be a good idea also to have a look in Event Viewer (Control Panel - Administrative Tools [in Performance & Maintenance if in Category view]- Event Viewer in Applications and System logs. The latest session will be at the top and if there are any red buttons you need to look at them to see what module or app, or service is mentioned. That info doesn't necessarily point to the problem directly, particularly with services, but it may give you a further clue, especially if it is in Apps.

There is a little utility you can download called Soluto, which will identify what programs, services etc are loaded at boot, and will enable you to disable ( pause) those you do not need. It is not a fault-fixer, but again it may give you further insight as to what is being loaded and/or causing the problem. Similarly Process Explorer will give you a full view of everything loaded and will show you what is occupying processor time etc.

Another thing you can do if you have an XP disk for your version of XP, is to type sfc /scannow in the run-box and allow the computer to access the disk when it needs to if it finds any system files need replacing. There is also a utility built into XP to allow you to verify drivers - but have forgotten the syntax. someone else might know or you could research it on the web yourself.

If you have the correct XP disk, you could also run it and get it to repair Windows - not the first option to press R to repair - that will send you to recovery console, which would be useful if you could not boot at all, but is probably not what you need now. You need to wait until you are given the later option to repair, after you have pressed F8 to say yes to the agreement.

End of day, if all else fails, you could back up your really important stuff to an external, not forgetting your e-mails and your browser favourites, and reformat and start again. I do it about every 18 months. As you have a Dell machine, you only need to put the tag number into the Dell site and you will have access to all the drivers (but get them down FIRST and onto a stick so you have the driver for the network card to hand).

Hope this helps. There are other areas to consider (ie corrupted files, registry, bad memory) but drivers are commonly to blame, though you do not mention any blue screens, which I would have expected you to have seen.