Greg wrote:

<<upon selecting to shut down my Laptop takes a lot
longer...too long to shut down. It used to shut down quickly. >>

First, reboot into Safe Mode. If shutdown is now OK, then there's something 
running in normal mode that's causing your shutdown delay.

If not OK in Safe Mode, then it's something fairly fundamental, possibly 
hardware-related. Try removing all peripherals such as printers, scanners, 
etc. Any difference? If so, you can proceed to isolate the cause by trial 
and error (adding each piece of hardware one at a time.) Sometimes it can 
even be a bad combination of items, where each one individually may be 
fine, but 2 or more may conflict.

Most delays are software-related, caused either by corrupted startup 
programs which won't close, or malware in the system. Run an anti-malware 
scan in Safe Mode with both Avira and Malwarebytes. I have seen a number of 
cases where simply removing Nortons or similar "All-in-One" security suites 
has speeded things up greatly, especially on laptops. When Nortons goes 
wrong, it can screw your system horribly.

Using a good free startup control program, such as Mike Lin's "Startup 
Control Panel", turn off all startups, reboot, and see if that fixes the 
problem. Note---no startup control prog will have any effect on malware. 
Don't use Msconfig, it's too basic and omits many non-system startups.

If the prob has now gone, trial and error should isolate the cause.

Another approach is to open Task Manager, and close each running 
application individually. If any one or more of these doesn't  close 
instantly, that's very likely  your culprit.

Boot time to desktop should be about 40-60 seconds, and shutdown should be 
about 5-10 seconds on any computer in good condition. Maybe a little longer 
for laptops.

If all else fails, perhaps it's time for a reformat if that hasn't been 
done in the last (say) year or so, depending on usage. Rubbish accumulates.

Don Penlington 

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