Why must my computer be told twice before it shuts down?

Factual Questions
1

I’ve got a 1.5 year-old Dell desktop PC that runs Windows 2000. It used to be that when I wanted to shut it down I 1) went to the lower left corner of the screen, clicked the “start” button, 2) scrolled to “shut down…” , and 3) clicked the “shut down? okay” button on the menu.

But, as of a month or two ago, that stopped working; now the PC blinks once or twice and stays on. If I repeat the shut-down-sequence a second time, it does, in fact, shut down.

I want my computer to obey the first time. What’s wrong and how can I fix it? Thanks all.

2

I don’t have a cite for you, but I’ve heard of similar behavior caused by password-stealing or backdoor viruses.

My first suggestion would be to update your antivirus software definitions, and scan for viruses.

Let me know how that goes.