Jeanne writes:

<<I cant shut down ,my computer
freezes every time .even leaving it a while and then pressing  Ctrl
Alt and Delete,has no effect,I can only shut down by switching off on the
tower, >>

Unfortunately, you haven't given us nearly enough info to help you.

You'll need to state:
Exactly which version of Windows you have.
When did the problem first occur.
How long since you last did a registry restore or a reformat
Details of your computer, memory, hard drive free space, etc.

There are hundreds, probably thousands, of possible causes of this common
problem.

In general, and without knowing more about your system, if you have W98/SE,
have you installed the microsoft patch for this problem, which was common
with early versions of W98SE on some brands of computers.

Try booting into Safe Mode, and see if you can close normally from there.

If that's OK, then try booting with Shift key held down---this stops most
of your startup programs from starting. Then see if you can close normally.
If now OK, it points to Windows being unable to close one of your running
programs. From there, it's a process of elimination to identify the culprit.

Other common causes are incompatible or difficult antivirus programs,
hardware conflicts, shortage of memory or hard drive free space. Try
disabling your antivirus, then rebooting, see if that helps.

Run Msconfig, untick everything in the Startup tab, reboot, check in Task
Manager to make sure nothing's running except Explorer and Systray (this
doesn't apply to XP), then shut down. (But that won't stop your antivirus
program from running at startup, you'll have to close that manually.)

You just have to tackle the problem methodically and logically, trying one
thing at a time and gradually eliminating various possibilities. That's why
we need as much info as possible so we know where to start.

Other things you could try meantime are downloading EndItAll, which closes
all running programs before you close the computer. You could also try
shutting down to dos first, which works for some. Then you can power off
from there.

The aim of the exercise is to get to a point, if possible, where you can
close normally. Then you can proceed from there.

Chances are, if you have powered off too many times with Windows not fully
closed down first, your registry will be very likely hosed and will need to
be restored (if you have backups). If not, you may need to reinstall Windows.

Don Penlington
 From the beach at Surfers Paradise.
http://www.geocities.com/donaldpen/
for sunny Queensland photos, fractal art, free computer tutorials, and more.

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