XP Shutdown issues

Hi everyone,

I'm turning to this forum as I think I need some specialized help with my Windows XP shutdown issues. I have a copy of Windows XP SP3 that runs off of a 16 GB compact flash disk. The computer has 1 GB of RAM and uses a 500 MHz processor. It's a single board computer that runs the software to collect data from a weather instrument. There are very few peripherals that are attached to the computer (USB, VGA, ethernet port). The most unique peripheral attached to the computer is an analog to digital converter (ADC) that interprets the analog signals produced by the instrument.

The instrument works fine so far, but our primary issue is with the shutdown process of Windows XP. Shutdown proceeds as normal, but once the Windows XP window closes showing the "Windows is shutting down...", all that's left is the blue background and the cursor (see attached images). The mouse is responsive, but I cannot do any control-alt-delete commands. To turn off the computer, a manual switch must be hit. This happens regardless of whether or not I have logged onto the machine.

I've been doing some troubleshooting based on what I've found on the Internet, but I'm at a loss as to what may be causing these shutdown issues. I get the sense that this is a software issue, as when the computer is booted into Windows XP Safe Mode (with and without networking enabled) the computer shuts down just fine. I've been working my way through disabling various services and drivers on the machine in an attempt to isolate the reason the shutdown hangs, but I haven't had much success. So far, I've tried the following:

1.) Uninstalling the ADC drivers.
2.) Disabling the various services (tasklist /svc) to try to replicate the set of the services that are running during Safe Mode. I wrote a .bat script to shutdown all of the services individually prior to shutdown. I can get all of them shutdown except for the LSASS.EXE SamSs service, which doesn't appear to respond to a "net stop SamSs" command.
3.) Disabled the audio shutdown sounds through the Control Panel.
4.) Run chkdsk.
5.) Defragmented the hard drive.

This computer isn't attached to the Internet, so I'm pretty sure it isn't some form of malware that is causing the shutdown to hang. Does anyone have any advice or suggestions of alternative things I could try? I'm not keen on doing a reinstall of Windows, as I'd have to try to dig up a copy of MS Visual C++ 2010 (to get the data collection software compiled again) and figure out how to re-attach a CD drive to the computer in order to get the OS reinstalled (although a USB boot option appears doable). I appreciate any help you can provide - this issue is driving me up a wall.

 

https://www.pctechguide.com/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows-xp/clean-booting

follow the instructions above until one of the items checked causes the shutdown problem, then we can persue that

shutdown problems are due to something running in the background, I always add a registry fix to allow quick shutdown of all processes:

Automatically Close Applications Not Responding at Shutdown

To Implement for All Users
[Start] [Run] [Regedit]
Registry Key: HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop
Data Type: REG_SZ [String Value] // Value Name: AutoEndTasks
Modify/Create the Value Name [AutoEndTasks] according to the Value Data listed below.
Value Data: [0 = AutoEndTasks Disabled / 1 = AutoEndTasks Enabled]
Exit Registry and Reboot
To Implement for Individual Users
[Start] [Run] [Regedit]
Registry Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
Data Type: REG_SZ [String Value] // Value Name: AutoEndTasks
Modify/Create the Value Name [AutoEndTasks] according to the Value Data listed below.
Value Data: [0 = AutoEndTasks Disabled / 1 = AutoEndTasks Enabled]
Exit Registry and Reboot

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control

WaitToKillServiceTimeout and
HungAppTimeout change values to 1000

change AutoEndTasks to 1 in the value which enables all process to be ended, 0 value will let processes take 20 seconds to end.


Modify Shutdown Time for Services to Close

[Start] [Run] [Regedit] Change to 1000
Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control
Modify/Create the Value Name [WaitToKillServiceTimeout] according to the Value Data listed below.
Data Type: REG_SZ [String Value] // Value Name: WaitToKillServiceTimeout
Value Data: [Default = 20,000 (expressed in milliseconds) Modify to preference.]
Exit Registry and Reboot

If your computer does not turn off the power when doing a shutdown,

Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
Edit the key Power OffActive and give it a value of 1
You can do the same in HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop

 

Hi Elizabeth23,

Thank you very much for this guidance. I've tried following it to the best of my ability, but I'm still encountering the shutdown problem. I'll describe what I've done:

1.) Tried to follow the clean booting tutorial. The problem still showed up when I followed the first few steps to do the clean boot (the Selective Startup w/Load System Services and original BOOT.INI + disabling non-Microsoft services + reboot). The only non-Microsoft service that I had to disable was Windows Defender which is strange as the manufacturer is listed as Unknown. It's not clear that Windows Defender was disabled as it was checked when I rebooted. So I followed the next step where I selected the Selective Startup w/o Load System Services and disabled all services, but when I reboot and the System Configuration Utility loads, the Diagnostic Startup boxed is checked and the essential services (DCOM Server Process Launcher, Remote Procedure Call (RCP) Locator, and Remote Procedure Call (RPC)) are the only services that are loaded. So I haven't been able to work beyond that yet. I see that there's a way to disable the essential services through the registry, would you recommend taking that route? I've backed up the registry before I started doing this.

2.) Modified the registry using the changes you suggested to the registry. I've done my best to try to get all of the changes you suggested. Here's what the new registry looks like:

HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/Control Panel/Desktop/ PowerOffActive – 1
HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/Control Panel/Desktop/ AutoEndTasks – 1
HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/Control Panel/Desktop/ WaitToKillAppTime – 20000

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control WaitToKillServiceTimeout – 1000

HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop AutoEndTasks – 1
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop PowerOffActive – 1
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop WaitToKillAppTimeout – 20000

Any thoughts on your end? I forgot to mention in my initial post that there's also 2 COM ports and a parallel port attached to the single board computer that aren't being used. I'm not sure if there are driver issues with those. I really appreciate you helping me out here!

 

WaitToKillServiceTimeout and
HungAppTimeout change values to 1000, you changed to 1000 correct?

HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/Control Panel/Desktop/ WaitToKillAppTime – 20000

I do not have the above key, and I only changed the keys I mentioned in my post, if you do not have the WaitToKillServiceTimeout/HungAppTimeout then you need to create the keys

1. windows defender no longer works on xp and should be removed

2. there is no need to disable services through the registry it is better to go to services.msc (you can go to start/run and type in services.msc) and disable services there. some services require a restart to become effectively off/on.

3. check the registry keys
WaitToKillServiceTimeout and
HungAppTimeout
to see if you have them and if not create them and set value to 1000

4. after removing windows defender, checking registry keys, then restart, BTW, do the removal and registry in safe mode, I have attached an image of my msconfig as I run selective startup 24/7 as I have numerous services disabled.

5. I have done most of the tips supplied by BlackViper xp service setup

 

Still no luck on my end. I uninstalled Windows Defender, but there was no improvement with the hung shutdown. Here are the additional registry keys I have installed (I did a search for those keys using the command line), so it looks like I got all of them. I think they got left out when I copied them over in my previous post:

HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/Control Panel/Desktop HungAppTimeout - 1000
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/ControlSet001/Control WaitToKillServiceTimeout - 1000
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/ControlSet003/Control WaitToKillServiceTimeout - 1000
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control WaitToKillServiceTimeout – 1000

Does the HungAppTimeout also need to be created underneath the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control path and vice-versa? That part was unclear.

I also started disabling services using services.msc. The startup items are also disabled. No luck. I tried the "SAFE" configuration and the Bare-Bones configuration on the BlackViper XP service setup you sent. I even tried stripping it down even further so that the only services running were Plug and Play, Event Log, and Remote Procedure Call (RPC).

 

Does the HungAppTimeout also need to be created underneath the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control path and vice-versa? That part was unclear.

yes, I have that key there with a value of 1000 . I have attached a .zip file with my document on shutdown issues, please read and see if any of the solutions/issues match yours.

 

How in the world can you install Windows XP on a thumb drive?