Takes forever to shut down.

I'm running Windows XP Home SP2 and have all the latest updates. DOTNET runtime 1.1.4322.2032 SP1 and 2.0.50727.42 RTM (Visual Studio.NET 2005 RTM / SQL Server 2005 RTM) are both installed. I'm also running ADO Database Runtime v.2.81.1128.0 and Internet Explorer v.7.0.6000.16441.

I did have .NET 3 installed, but removed it.

The problem is that my computer frequently takes forever to shut down. I'll tell it to "Turn Off" and walk away, then come back minutes later and it's still stuck in the "Saving your setttings" mode. Eventually, it turns off but the time required for it to do this is totally unacceptable. In fact, I often get P.O.ed and out of frustration, hold in the power button until it goes off. This has never hurt anything to this point, but probably will screw up some files at some point.

Note that my problem is NOT that the computer reboots when I want it to shut down. The problem is that the computer takes an extremely prolonged amount of time to shut down.

I've Googled around and found several suggestions like the ones at this site:

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1590&page=32

but none of them worked.

I am not running Roxio Easy CD creator of any kind and since a total wipe and reinstall of my hard drive, never have.

Although I'm running an NVidia based video card, I'm not running the Nvidia Driver Helper Service.

I have disabled Terminal Services.

I tried installing and running (it autoruns in the background) the Microsoft User Profile Hive Cleanup Service:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=1B286E6D-8912-4E18-B570-42470E2F3582&displaylang=en

or if you prefer:

http://tinyurl.com/2h3yl

and although it helps, what it does is to speed up the shutdown time consistently but it still takes longer to shut down than I want and does so every time. At least before, the computer would shut off quickly once in a while. As a result, I have removed UPHCS and now am hoping that somebody in this group can help me figure out what the problem is.

By the way, I'm not the only person having this problem. Ever since Vista came out, I've noticed that more and more of my friends and family members who run XP (Pro OR Home) are having the same problem.

Any recommendations will be greatly appreciated.

TIA.

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John Corliss
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