# Odd XP shutdown issue

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-xp-shutdown-issue/313746>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 23, 2005, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-xp-shutdown-issue/313746 "2005-07-23T01:56:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2005, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-xp-shutdown-issue/313746/1 "2005-07-23T01:56:02Z")

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A while back I had some trouble with spywayre, malware, adware, trojans, backdoors, the works. It was own fault, a moment of laxitude in years of vigilance. I basically burned everything bad off of it then used a restore utility to go back several months.

However, after that, it took the PC much longer than normal to shut off. In fact, if I select Start-\>Turn Off Computer it takes several minutes for the shutdown box to pop up. The computer is almost totally locked (at 100% resource use) for the duration. It’s much faster to shut it down from the Task Manager.

After starting the shutdown, it takes several more minutes for the computer to turn off. There doesn’t seem to be any prolems with the comuter; the shut-off is just very slow. There are no unusual processes I can identify taking up juice, and the system resources are almost totally free unless I’m running a very powerful program. Everything seems normal.

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**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2005, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-xp-shutdown-issue/313746/2 "2005-07-23T02:24:12Z")

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It may be Spyware still hanging around, or a virus corrupted a program.

Before doing any changes, do a backup of your data.

Try to do a clean boot:

[http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310353](http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310353)

And then see if not loading a program or a suspicious process solves the problem.

Check the steps on this page too:

[http://windowsxp.mvps.org/slowshutdown.htm](http://windowsxp.mvps.org/slowshutdown.htm)