Win 98 Second Edition shutdown problem

Hello,
As you may or may not know, Win98 Second edition has a shutdown problem in which the "windows is shutting down" screen just freezes when you attempt to shut down your PC.
I have gone unto the microsoft web site to investigate. It is a documented problem which Microsoft suggests that we follow a bunch of detailed steps to troubleshoot our software and our hardware. They then suggest that if all else fails, to apply a patch that they provided.
I did apply the patch to each PC on my network. They seem to work fine for a little while, but the computers seem to regress back to the point where they can no longer shut down again. Here are my opinions/questions:

1) it is very clear that the shutdown problem is Win98 Second Edition specific. The problem lies with Win98 SE, and not our software/hardware. So why is Microsoft suggesting that we try all these steps to troubleshoot our hardware/software?

2) the patch does not work permanently, as the computers just reverts back to their original problem after a while. Does anyone else have any suggestions?

My network consists of brand new Compaq Prosignias (PIII 450, 128 RAM, etc.) with the latest drivers. I just don't think it is my hardware/software.

D. Chang
dkc@llsi.com

I cant say I am a Compaq Prosignia fan or a compaq fan period. I have had endless problems with thier hardware. I install networks for a living. My company is a Sirex reseller. I also setup client purchased systems ie. Dell Gateway and occasionally Compaq. I set up win98 SE all the time and maybe saw that problem once or twice.

It should not really matter (not that much, at least) which computer company the workstations are from, since they all use parts by other manufacturer. The CPU is from Intel, the HD is from IBM, the Video card is from Diamond, etc.

Compaq computers are not going anywhere anytime soon in my job, as my company is a Compaq reseller. What about other people? What are you experiences? Any remedies? Thanks.

D. Chang
dkc@llsi.com

Hi,
I had a similar problem as Windows 98 would not shut and the computer was restarting , so that the only way to close the computer was by using "the brute force of a power switch". However the MS patch, once applied worked and is still going OK as I have no more problems and the window "It is safe..." comes on without fail.I wonder if the problem is not specific to the board you are using.
Regards,

I've seen the same problem with SiS/AMD-K62(etc) and Epox boards. The only solution has been to hit the power switch.

This is really upsetting. The fact that the MS patch does not permanently fix this problem has cost us (and our clients) a lot of time and resources.

D. Chang
dkc@llsi.com

Hello. Ive seen this alot too.
90% of the time when I force apm 1.0 compliancy in power management settings, everything works ok.

I'm having the same problem with our computers. We have 30 workstations (mostly Gateway computers) on a Novell 4.11/Client 3.1.

I already applied the patch also, with no lasting results. Currently having everyone making sure they close all apps properly then using the power switch.

From hearing everyone's testimonies, this does not seem to be hardware-specific, as Microsoft would like to imply. We have all sorts of hardwares (Gateway, Compaq, AMD chips) having the same shutdown problem.

D. Chang
dkc@llsi.com

We have/had the same problems with our computers on a NetWare 4.11 network. We are now up to the 3.2.0.0 NetWare client.
We have found 3 possible solutions (since Microsoft's Supplemental Shutdown patch did not work for us)...

1) Have the users close out of all programs, log off the network, cancel through the attempts to log back on, and when Win98SE finishes loading, do a shut down.

2) Create a shortcut using:
C:\WINDOWS\RUNDLL.EXE user.exe,exitwindows
(We still tell to the users to make sure to close all programs before double clicking on this shortcut).

3) Download a shareware utility called Shutdown NOW! v3.72. This can be downloaded from www.dworld.de (there is a $25.00US charge per license to register the product).

All 3 of these solutions seem to work, depending on how much you want to work at it or pay for it.

**Also with the NetWare client, if you're forced to power off before the system says that it's safe to do so, and when Windows loads again, you don't get ANY icons... Before powering off again and going into Safe Mode to shut it down properly, bring up the End Task window (Ctrl-Alt-Del) and see if Wm95sast is sitting there! If it is, that seems to be the culprit! That is Novell's workstation manager. Reinstall the NetWare client using custom and make sure that you DO NOT install the workstation manager.**

I too have tested all the previous Microsoft supplemental releases to address this issue and have found none to work 100% of the time until now.

I have been testing the updated USER.EXE detailed in KB article Q242934 and have found that it has been 100% successful.

The issue, the way I see it, is identical to the issue experienced with IE 4 prior to SP1, where if you had any network drives mapped at shutdown it would hang. IE4 SP1 resolved this issue.

This issue is not hardware specific.

dxd,
Thanks you for the tip. However, I went to the MS article you listed, and they provided me with a link that is suppose to lead me to the "fix". But going to that link only got me to where I must contact their tech support to obtain the fix. Can you tell me an easier to get the fix, or if you have it, to forward a copy to me? Thanks for all your help.

D. Chang
dkc@llsi.com

I am a small OEM, consultant and began to see the shutdown problem with Win98SE with the very first copy I used and have seen it many, many times since SE came out last August. In fact, I spent several hours of wasted time trying to overcome the problem on the first install before I saw it was a software problem with SE. It is not consistent with every build and sometimes seems to vary with the possible varieties of OS installs. However, I have rarely seen a problem upon startup after shutting the power down when the "waiting" screen is still visible after waiting a few seconds before power off.

You repeated the content of my second reply to this thread (which, mysteriously, seems to be missing from the forum). In any case, bookfndr, thanks for providing the answer. When in doubt, shut it down. Windows finishes its internal housekeeping within a few seconds of a shut-down. It isn't always able to tell you that it's okay to hit the power switch.

My problem is just a little different; after a crash and re-install (upgrade version of 98SE), my APM options are all grayed out.  Trying to fix everything, I also lost all power management functions.  The PC (PII-333) shuts down properly most times, and it always comes back to life properly... but the power management is shot to bits.  BIOS settings take effect if I boot to DOS, but *NOT* if I boot to Windows 98SE.

Odd.

Thanks, all.

Hello
    I've also seen this problems quite a lot. Theres a shutdow updat available from Microsfts webpage. Just run  the exe and alls ok.

I too have Dells, Compaq and HP with Netware clients 3.2 and have had no solution that is 100% effective.  The patch only works temporarily.  

Ive had the same problem.  Put the fix on about 3 weeks ago and now again I'm having the same problem  BUT I have installed a lot of software since the fix.  Not sure if it is all MS 98

dxd wrote:
<< I  have been testing the updated USER.EXE detailed in KB article Q242934 and have found that it has been 100% successful. >>
I went to ms support and the user.exe file is not posted publicly.  Can you post this file for download.
thnx.

I did try the shareware program "shutdown now!" www.dworld.ge. It seems to work on all pc's.

I've haved the same problem from time to time. Just power down an restart. The patch only works 75% of the time. I have a cyber room that runs 5 win98se systems, So what if you do a hard down, then you know if your drivers are good. my systems stay up for anyware up too 30 days. If they hang at shut down I just reboot and  SanDK
 runs.THIS is from someone who HATES MS. I tell my computers what they DO, not what want to do.

R & G Computers
rafales@carnegienet.net

I have been working on this problem since 98SE came out. I have many clients that I do off site network admin for. You are correct that it has nothing to do with who the OEM hardware supplier is.  It seems to happen with processor speeds over 300MHz on Novel Networks 3.x or 4.x. I have loaded both MS Shudown.exe and User.exe. The problem goes away sometimes for a short while and then comes back. It does not happen on every shutdown but on most. Microsoft has been reluctant to fix the problem either because they can’t find the cause or maybe they know the cause and it has to do with Novell.  Does that mean the problem is good for NT?  I am going to try some of the solutions listed by others in this thread and let you know.

Perhaps you have too many programs running in the background? Several machines at work had the same problem and I shut everything but systray and explorer down in the system configuration utility and it stopped. Ah reckon that there were just so many things trying to shut down that the machine gave up and sat there staring off into space... maybe, maybe not, but it worked.

Microsoft finally released another update with regards to this issue. Although, they claim the issue is specifically with boxes mapping a lot of drives.

Anyway, here is the link to the patch.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows98/downloads/contents/WUCritical/q260067/default.asp

I have had exactly the same problem with all of our brand new PC's over a Netware Network.  I am going to get everyone to log off Novell before shutting down and see how that works.  Short term we are shutting down using RUNDLL.exe, changing the properties to read:-

C:\WINDOWS\RUNDLL.EXE user.exe,exitwindows

This does work but what side effects long term use can have I am not sure, so would still like a proper solution.

Oddly I have not encountered this problem with 98SE although the majoroty of my network clients are running Workstation. Something to try- (I used this to figure out a similar problem with 95 clients) Log in but don't open any mapped drives (if possible). Try to shutdown. It may shutdown OK.
When shutdown would hang,I found that when running scandisk after the reboot I noticed a "fixed" flash when checking free space. I never really had time to figure out why as we updated the network shortly after.
I apologize if this is redundant. Thought it might help.

Al
atc-computing@home.com

Thanks to DXD this latest update from microsoft seams to work, but I first had to load the other two updates, shutdown and user.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows98/downloads/contents/WUCritical/q260067/default.asp

I have found no updates from MS that actually work.  I know that if you log off of your network, the system does not hang on shutdown.  Another work-around I have found helpful is to just hold down shift while clicking OK on shutdown.

I guess I spoke to soon. Just networked 3 Compaq Presarios (yuk). As soon as I installed the NICs (Intel Pro 100s) I started getting the dreaded shutdown hang. The other machine is a Compaq Prof. Wkstn. AP400 with embedded NIC which had no problem.
Most of the machines I sell are Abit or Intel mainboard based and have never seen this problem before. I wonder if it is somehow a Compaq thing.
Does anyone know if Compaq has addressed this problem at all?

Al
atc-computing@home.com

Considering this long thread and the many, many, many other threads in various forums throughout the net...I would say it is not a Compaq problem or any hardware vendor for that matter.

Doug
dxd_2000@yahoo.com

I had the same problem on an HP Pavilion. The patch worked for a day or so to stop the lockup on shutdown only.
Unfortunately, I also had other performance problems, mainly eating the CPU alive --constantly maxing out the CPU when only running Explorer. (not internet. When I loaded a CDRom burner, then the system would not continue to run long enough to even run diagnostics.

SO-o-o-o-o-o wound up loading Win98 NOT Second Edition.
Everything is working really well now. (Unfortunately, I spent over $300 on a less-than-genius on-site support tech before I insisted on just loading the first edition.)

NOW microsoft tells me that that the second edition version of WIN98 on the Pavilion Recovery disks is defective... but since the web-published literature on second edition mentions hardware interaction changes that would require new drivers from device mfgrs, I'm gonna stick with the Win98 until I cannot.

We have a small (under 10 units) network, so microsoft does not recommend that we go to WIN2000, but my primary machine is a hardy homebuilt NT workstation. I would 100% NT4 (very robust) except that one of our programmers thinks he may want to use USB soon --and NT4.0 doesn't recognize USB.

Are you sure nt doesn't support NT4. I have a couple of dell precision workstations here and they have built in USB ports. I am not sure if they work as I have not tested them.

If only one of your programmers thinks they will need usb support then leave their computer running win98 and switch the rest to NT. That leaves you with one headache and 9 stable units.

Just a thought,

fenris
fenris@hotmail.com

NT4 does not natively support most of the goodies.....USB, Infrared, DirectX >3!

Instead of keeping the programmers box at Win9x...move it to W2K Pro. You get all the goodies + the robustness and security..as well as stability (from my standpoint anyway).

Doug
dxd_2000@yahoo.com

The Microsoft Techs who put on seminars locally repeatedly said that W2K Pro was not a reasonable choice for really small operations. I couldn't get a clear answer as to why, except that perhaps a lot of tweaking would be required.

If there were a "workstation" variety, as in NT$.0, that would be my first choice, but I cannot afford to have a system down for a week!

All encouragement for switching to W2K is appreciated...
I cannot deal with SE anymore for sure.
--maribeth

W2k is basically just WNT5. You should wait for Windows Millenium.

Windows Mill. is the new consumer OS, replacing WIN 98. Anyone concerned about security or stability should move straight to 2000.

Al
atc-computing@home.com

Well, I thought I had solved my crash and shutdown problems by going to straight win98, but the price is too high.
cannot run the onboard sound chip without SE it looks like.
HP tech say HP "must have" changed the driver that Cirrus provided because the driver downloaded from cirrus now won't run the sound chip on the motherboard. The HP support tech suggests I put in another soundcard, but there's not much room in this tight little package...
Guess my problems are going to be somewhat hardware specific due to proprietary modification of drivers (and firmware?), and this particular box has gotta go...(am I pouting?) I need the sound card for speech to text transcription[critical], testing wav files for webpages, burning Barbershop practice CDs, etc. Right now, must work sound on Toshiba laptop, then transfer files thru the 98 box for uploads and CD creation. -nasty
--mcy

I've seen the shutdown problem many times with Win98SE and have tried many things to combat it including the patch which only works part of the time.  What I did find that helps on any PC with a virus shield (Norton & McAfee in particular) is to disable the "scan floppies on shutdown".  Any 98SE PC that had problems hanging on shutdown were fixed with this option disabled.  This is an easy fix that you might want to give a try.  Please let me know how it turns out.

I had this problem as well.  Basicly what I found that fixed it was to delete or rename the logow.sys file in the windows directory.  It appears that sometimes the file is corrupt.  Hope this helps.

Usaualy it is a driver problem. Try downloading the newest drivers or try installing your pc plainly and then install driver by driver to find out where the problem is.

I'm seeing something VERY strange here.
I'm running a home built PIII 650E w/ Abit's BH6 mobo.
After a crash to my system, I reinstalled Win98SE.
Now, my system will NOT shutdown.  It only restarts EVERYTIME. No matter how i try to shutdown. Start > Shutdown > Shutdown.  or even after a shortcut has been created and using various syntax to shut her down. It only restarts. I tried reinstalling Win98SE. Same thing happens.
Any ideas?

I suggest that you follow the steps listed below to prevent your system from lockups :
Please note that having higher system resources at bootup directly increases your system performance, especially while Multitasking activities are performed simultaneously.
Windows comes with an application that will allow you to configure what programs will start up when you boot the computer. You can access this application by clicking the start button, then click run and type "MSCONFIG" without the quotes. You will then see a window with several tabs at the top. Click on the startup tab. A list of applications will be shown with check boxes denoting which applications are being selected to start at bootup.
The only items that absolutely should remain checked are "SYSTRAY" and "SCANREGISTRY". Systray displays the time and other icons for applications running in the background. Scanregistry makes backup copies of the registry that can be restored if a software installation corrupts the registry.
The main programs other than those mentioned above are:
Scan Registry
LoadPowerProfile (should be listed twice)
Vsecomr.exe Anti-Virus software
VSCom.exe Anti-Virus software
VshWin32Exe (should be listed twice)
McAfee WebScanX
Eaclean
CpqEasyAcc
Em_Exec
Compaqprintray (if you have Compaq Printer)
Compaqsystray
TaskMonitor

McAfee requires the following:

McAfee WebScanX
AvconsoleEXE
VsecomrEXE
Vshwin32EXE
VsStatEXE

After unchecking some of the other items, you should click the apply button and then the OK button. The system will prompt you to restart, and acknowledge that with yes. The desktop will most likely look different and you may lose some functionality depending on what you unchecked. You can either run the program from the start menu or simply add the check back the way you unchecked until you have a balance between running applications and enough resources to smoothly operate on your machine
In addition to the above, we also suggest that you delete the Temporary Internet files. These temporary files are usually deleted when the program is closed. Usually the temporary files are created in C:\Windows\Temp directory.
We advise that you make it a habit to delete these files from the above-mentioned folder regularly.

1. Double-click on the My Computer icon on the desktop.
2. Double-click on the C: drive.
3. Double-click on the Windows folder.
4. Double-click on the Temp folder.
5. Click on the Edit pull-down menu then click on Select All. All files in this folder should then be highlighted.
6. Verify that you are in the C:\Windows\Temp folder.
7. Press the Delete key on the keyboard.
8. Answer Yes to any prompts about deleting files.

NOTE: If you receive a message stating that a particular file could not be deleted then             continue deleting the remaining files until as many files as possible have been       deleted.
9. Close all open windows so you are back on the desktop
Also, maintaining your System’s hard drive is equally important. Please perform the instructions mentioned below carefully which will drastically improve your system’s performance.

Hard drive maintenance:

Scandisk and Defragmenter are the two utilities that should be executed on a regular basis. Both of these utilities can be accessed through start, programs, accessories, system tools. You may have a problem with both of these utilities hanging or restarting. If this occurs, run the utilities in safe mode. To get into safe mode:

First restart the computer. This can be done by selecting Start > shutdown > restart the computer. When the first red Compaq logo appears on the screen, hold down the control (CTRL) key in the bottom-left hand corner of the keyboard. This will bring you to the Windows 98 startup menu. When this comes up, release the control key. Use the arrow keys on the keyboard to get to safe mode, which should be number three, and press Enter. This will load Windows safe mode.


Please go to the following Microsoft site and download the shut down patch:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows98/downloads/contents/wurecommended/s_wufeatured/win98se/default.asp

pvasu

ha ha here is some info i have found out...
win98's shutdown procedure is linked to the type of hard drive you have and the configuration it is in.

Test machine:
intel PIII 500mhz
256mb pc100 Dimm
MSI Intel 440LX Chipset
Mitsumi 50X cdrom
Diamond Monster Fusion Video Card agp (3dfx)
3com E-Link III NIC
TekRam DC390U SCSI
Sound Blaster 128 PCI

software:
win98, win2000 advanced server

Hard drives:
Western digital
Maxtor
Fugitsu

When windows shuts down one of the last things it does is try to turn off your hd's i have found that western digital drives configured correctly work best and shutdown is instant maxtors take longer and fugitsu drives are trash and dont work at all not to mention the corrupt themselves.
if you are having trouble with your system shuting down look at your hard drive and bios settings... also try the disable fast shutdown command in MSconfig  (Start...>Run...:msconfig  Advanced>> disable fast shutdown.

Just ran through this thread while troubleshooting shutdown problems on the IBM 6574-A3U in a 8 Workstation lab where this shutdown issue with SE is CHRONIC (almost 60%-70%).  Thanks el mucho.

C:\WINDOWS\RUNDLL.EXE USER.EXE,EXITWINDOWS works like a charm.

Holding shift while clicking OK on shutdown works like a charm.

Have not yet installed update.

My question is, what housekeeping is the system missing out on by using these methods?  Or are we just missing out on the opportunity to stare at a logo while heading for the white switch?

Finally there is a fix on the MS update site that works. It has something to do with mapped drives. I have installed this fix on over 30 machines and it has worked on all except 1 (which turned out to be a different problem). Give it a try, I think you'll like it.

Me? I just disabled Win98SE being the only interface; mine works like 3.11 now. When I boot, it starts in DOS, it doesn't even show me the splash screen; when I shutdown, it simply exits Win98SE and doesn't show the message. I even wrote a little boot menu (because I use something called SEAL Desktop Environment when I'm doing some coding and I don't want Windows slowing me down) and placed it in my AUTOEXEC.BAT after everything else (i.e. drivers) and I wrote a small progie to show the brown "It is now safe..." message. No problems should arise because "this is the way it's been done for thousands of years". Try it. If anyone wants to know how to disable the Win9x autoboot, check out this site, [url]http://regedit.com[/url] or you can run a search for MSDOS.SYS editing tips.


Good luck.


P.S. MSDOS.SYS editing should be done with extreme caution
     because it is one of the three important files that
     DOS and Windows need to run. Make sure you understand
     the text before you go changing settings.

i have facing so many pc"s with win98 o.s that contain this problem
this step may help u to settle this problem...

just click at www.bootdisk.com and download this file PATCHES :
Shutdown498SE
 
double click to the icon that refer to this filename and follow the instruction.....

if this step still cant solve your problem ,,for temporary just click restart on dos mode ..after that u can shut down your pc properly...until u get the right solution ..
 

I dont wish to rain on anybodies grissles, but the network I have been looking after for quite some time now is working quite well after I made some changes and added both patches.

The original patch for the shutdown and USER.EXE patch work well in tandem. Plus I also found the Fujitsu HD very slow to shutdown so I ghosted all to WD's. Plus limited the number of drives that can be mapped with the statement "Lastdrive=E" and disabled FAST SHUTDOWN.

Before I had to redo them about every 2 months, since the mod about 3 months ago (touch wood ) we have had no problems.

So let's talk about what works, not what does MS have to do.
We are the Techs lets do what we are paid to do, solve the problem. It appears that not just one fix will do the job. So come on guys and gals lets work together.



Steven Walker
strider@paradise.net.nz
 
Brainbench MVP Computer Technician

  The truth is in M$s deep libraries :)
Is it possible that this problem still occurs in WinMe?
Or does anyone actually know how to solve the WinME shutdown isue?
Please write an answer to The_Maegges@gmx.de
 Thanks
          Maegges

I'd like to know more about shutdowning with FUJITSU hardrdives in WINDOWS 98'. What is the problem and how i can solve it?

Hi all,
         I had tried all of the suggestions in this forum without any luck, but for a slightly different problem.  My PIII866 on Asus CUSL2 shuts down just fine, but it hangs on some weird "windows is shutting down" screen when I choose restart from the windows shut down menu. (looks similar to the windows starting spalsh screen) Anyway, I solved my problem by accident when trying a fix for a totally different problem pertaining to my DMA settings. Disabling SoundBlaster 16 emulation in device manager was supposed to help the DMA situation and it didn't.  But all of a sudden, my system restarts like it's supposed to. It actually scared me because I've never heard it restart since I built it 2 weeks ago. I guess I his resart by accident and I didn't know what the weird noises were at first. I enabled SB16 again (which you don't need unless you play DOS games, the article said) and she locks up again.  So that was definitely the cause of my problem.   I hope it works for others.....good Luck

I recently had the FunLove, or maybe it's FreeLove, virus on my comp, either way it's a trojan that infects all exe files.  I let McAfee handle it, it took like 2 and a half hours.  Everything worked fine upon reboot, except mcafee.  I says that vsecomr.exe has a validation code that does not match, if someone could help I'd be very appreciative.

When I worked for Gateway, we were getting the same problem with Windows 98SE with the shutdown issue.  The patch not always worked.  The research I did was that if you have Norton Anti-virus 2000 on your system, this would cause the problem.  If you go to their web site they have the step to remedy the issue.

I came across this twice and it was application oriented,
for example once it was Simply accounting. If you used it and saved info upon shutdown freezeup every time. Went to
simply accounting home page and forum suggested to put
graphics performance slide to none. it worked go figure.

Funny you should mention bwb52 about Norton AV2000. The same sometimes happens with NU 2000. I approached their Tech Support and they are looking into it.

An update on the systems....... 4 months tomorrow...still going strong no problems...



Steven Walker
strider@paradise.net.nz
 
Brainbench MVP Computer Technician

Guess what I have windows me and have the same shut down problem...When I go to shut down my whole screen freezes up. Then I have to use drastic measures and shut the power of....soooo I guess the problem continues.  After I shut the power of I am able to restart with no problem.

Have had the same shutdown problems with Win 98SE , now with Win ME... shutdown problems too; Now using the EXITS 95/98 program to shutdown my computer, available (freeware) from the TECCHANNEL.DE site - look for system-utilities;
I'm using this one for 3 days now, so far so good. Another
thing that did work fine, before I installed the EXITS program,
was to go to ALT+CTRL+DEL and then ending all the programs listed in it, except for Explorer and Systray, after done so I was able to shutdown properly. Hope it might be a little help.

i have a gateway w/ win98 se and i have this shut down problem that seems to be a well know problem, i have discarded all programs from startup that seemed never to respond when i would contr+alt+del to end task.  but when i use the contr+alt+del to shut down it seems to work fine. i was wondering if this is bad or should i just keep doing it this way or get the patch ms talks about?
any reponses are appreciated  thanks....
Jeff tsr in a lonley cold place

MarkusBrutus -

vsecomr.exe is an update checker, not anything real important from what I can tell.  Delete the "VsecomrEXE" from "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

Have a Dell laptop that will not shutdown, using any process, any ideas? Have tried all the user info from MS without any success.

I've got Windows me running on my computer here in Seoul Korea. Comp. won't shutdown, is there a patch that I can use? Please let me know


Morgan in Seoul

Morgan_32@hotmail.com

I've experienced same problems in several different hardware configurations. I've solved the problem editting the registry. Just run the "regedit.exe" and find the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control
folder. In the Shutdown folder change the value of the term "Fastreboot" to 0.

This method has worked in several different machines. Hope it solves the problem...

Get this, I installed a new hard drive of 20 gigs and Now the CD player that came with the system won't work at all.
Any ideas, I would love to hear them.  
Thanx

chong420,
Your message seems off post, but I'd check the jumper settings on the new hard drive you installed.  You probably need the jumper set to the "Master" setting if your CD-ROM drive is on the same IDE cable as your hard drive.  The jumper on the new hard drive may be set to "C/S" (cable select) which will not work in all combinations.  Also you could check the hard drive you removed and see what its jumper was set to.

There is a shutdown problem with SE, which is something to do with mapped network drives.

 I downloaded this patch and have not had any problem since.

I am not familiar with Win98SE, but have you tried the msconfig/advanced/disable fast shutdown option? (run msconfig from start menu/run).

In most cases with Windows 98 not shutting down is related to mapped drive letters.  Try removing and network maps that you have and then shutdown see if it makes any difference.  If you don't have any mapped drives then I am not sure why it's not shutting down properly.

I was running into the same problem on my company network and in all cases where I removed the drive letters first the system shutdown everytime.

Tom Walter
twalter@mediaone.net

I didn't take time to read all the threads but this has been a problem with Win 98 FE/Se. The patch can be reapplied to stop the regression for a while but the true problem lies with turning off your power control in the BIOS and settings your screen saver to NONE. This is the only way I have kept this problem from occuring again and again.  This problem has been around since I beta tested FE. If you want to totally be rid of this problem upgrade to ME. It doesn't have this problem and it is easier to network anyway.
MasterFrodo

WIN98 SE PLUS SHUT DOWN..RESOLVED

I HAVE A S7-530A EPOX MB.  I TOO EXPERIENCED THE HANGS AT SHUTDOWN.  MY RESOLUTION WAS THE FOLLOWING:

OPEN MSCONFIG:

1.  GO TO START UP AND UNCHECK EVERYTHING BUT:
A.  SCANREG
B.  SYSTEM TRAY
C.  LOAD POWER PROFILE
D.  LOAD POWER PROFILE (SECONDARY)

OPEN AUTOEXEC:

2. UNCHECK ANY BITWARE, ANTIVIRUS OR ANY PROGRAM
   THAT IS NOT PRECEDED BY DOS OR SET BLASTER.

3. NEXT, GO TO MICROSOFT AND GET THE "WIN98SE SHUTDOWN" FIX.
   

Check the Compaq website for a power management patch. I found these for the Deskpro models I use.

SOLUTION FOR WIN98 SHUTDOWN PROBLEM

1. Right click on the desktop
2. Create new shortcut
3. the command is: 'RUNDLL32 user,exitwindows'
4. Name your shortcut whatsoever

It's not a definite solution, but it works for me!

By the way, I advice you to not try it on a 'sane' PC, it will make the problem appear...

ReDevil2001

Just an update on my network status as regards to the 98 SE Shutdown.....

It has been 7 months now since the patches and reconfig of the individual systems on the network...

All have been working fine....no hang ups at all..so we are on the right track guys.

So lets start putting all the fixes that we have come up with so far onto one FAQ and post it.....how about dachang this is your thread....

Steven Walker
strider@paradise.net.nz
 
Brainbench MVP Computer Technician

This issue for me is driver specific. Ever since I installed the Voodoo5 5500 Video card and its associated drivers I've had the problem with Win98 SE shutdown. I'm going to try Shutdown Now! but, I feel it's a problem with compatibility and conflicts between Win98 SE and newly installed drivers or programs. For the the purported plug and play capabilities of the OS, Win 98 SE is lacking.

In most cases a combination of the previous patches will work, notice "most" not all.
Recently tried this on a couple of "nothing seems to work" ones and it did the job.
Go into control panel - system - device manager
Open up system devices
Open up PCI bus
Open up IRQ steering (make a note of settings in case you want to put them back!)
Now disable all the "Get IRQ table using" boxes APART FROM THE ONE USING MS SPECIFICATION TABLE, leave that one selected. Now OK then OK again. Reboot and go back into control panel - system - device manager and check the changes have been made. Hope this helps some of you. TTFN.  

Thanks everbody. After doing all the M$ stuff I came and read here. On a hunch I disabled McAfee and I can now shutdown.

Hello all,
First, thank you for all the helpful info.  I too tried all the MS supposed fixes and find the problem reoccurring.

I will try suggestions as found here....but...

Is the WIN98SE shutdown problem also related to system freezing/hanging when switching drives in any program/My Computer/Windows Explorer?  Is this a separate problem or a system of the shutdown problem?

We are currently experiencing this problem on 23 new Dells (Dell and MS tech have no answers and no related info in their libraries).

Next step is to wipe and rebuild with Win98 (not SE).

Any ideas?

Thank you,
Onegurl

Try putting the afforementioned shortcut, works on my machines

C:\WINDOWS\RUNDLL32.EXE User,ExitWindows

I have had limited success with telling the BIOS to assign an IRQ for the video card.  That often (but not always) works.

1
ms patchs are available and fix most shutdown probs
2
sometimes some programs wont let go of the os, ie norton,
take them out of startup or shut them down by hand before
trying to shut down machine

3
i do not know issue with fujitsu,but apparently there is one
4
see above for irq, and other, fixes besides above

Well, I'll put my two pence worth in...here is a quick alternative if you are sick of seeing scandisk everytime you have to force a shutdown/restart...rightclick 'My Computer' select 'Properties' then 'Device Manager'..expand 'System Devices', double-click on Plug and Play BIOS and hit the settings tab..check the 'Disable NVRam / ESCD Updates'...push ok (reboot may be necessary)...this will give you the "It is now safe to turn your PC off" message.... I think the problem is associated with the faster CPU's...theyre shutting down to fast and not giving the cache time to clean out or for shutdown commands via APM to complete their given tasks. I hear there is a patch that delays the shutdown procedure for 2 seconds to allow for this...sorry I don't have a link for it.

I work for a Computer Repair company and we built a 1 Ghz system. It worked fine until we put in a net card and installed protocals and such. It hangs on Restart and Shutdown. Not to mention it won't even restart properly when I install the MS patch. Whereas it may with some systems, I don't believe it has to do with mapped drives considering we don't have any right now. <shrug>.


Adam

We had this same problem.  We did not feel it was related to the mapped drives issue, but applying the NDIS fix worked - albeit temporarily.  After 3 weeks, the fix had to be applied again.  In the end, we ended up moving the machines to other OSs - WIN98 (not SE) and Windows 2000.  No problems since.

I tried changing somthing in Power Managment in the BIOS and unchecking the two Power Profiles and it still does the same thing. This is a customers new system so it's not like I can say: "Hey, when you shutdown your computer, can't you click on that Rundll.exe shortcut instead?" ;) So right now I just have to keep searching and trying stuff. If anyone has any ideas, then great. All we've done is install a net card and protocols. Later.

Adam

I have the same problem since I installed a network card on my computer. It's a generic NIC that I got from ATT Broadbant so I cannot really contact the manufacturer for this. The PC shuts down just fine...if I physically remove the card from the PCI slot. I've tried many things (including the MS patch) but nothing seems to work. Any ideas??
Thanx
PS I found an elaborate document (with solutions) for many of the shutdown issues at http://www.aumha.org/a/shutdownz.htm

After clicking on your link below and saw only one word:
"Sound" My problem started right after I changed some of
the sounds (start-up, error-sounds, closing-sounds, etc.)

Now I just wait about 2 minutes then I shut down I
only have the problem once a week now. Will try some of
the above suggestions.
K90814

I thought the problem was over when we found out that the Power Saving feature and the netcard was using the same IRQ. So we freed an IRQ and set them to use their own. It worked at first. Then I installed drivers for MSs Keyboard and Intelli mouse combo unit and things when down from there.

Problem can come from lots of sources. #1 Power managment - Disable it in BIOS. #2 Needed Chipset update, Find maker of mainboard and get update for chipset. If Windows NT get newest HAL. For Windows 98 on a AMD chpset get AMD's AGP / Miniport drivers + EIDE. #3 The SCSI drivers being installed on a system without SCSI drive ! , Installing some updates for 98 will install SCSI drivers - FIX , remive any ASPI*.vxd or ASPI*.drv in SYSTEM or ISOUBSYS folders, reboot. Also delete any of the following :
Apix.vxd
Scsi1hlp.vxd
Scsiport.pdr

Good luck

Guy if you have any problem for shuting down.First you can try to update your motherboard bios.If still the same problem try to check your power switch if you are using ATX casing or the power management in the cmos.As what I know sometime my customer have install a Norton Anti Virus and it cause the system to hang because of the auto protect. If you guy have any problem just let me know.

owilde,

url as requested http://www.microsoft.com/windows98/downloads/contents/wurecommended/s_wufeatured/win98se/default.asp

Check this link out. It's got some good links and covers most 98SE shutdown problems.

http://209.155.180.149/win98-52.html

Hope this helps and good luck!

I have read up and fixed many computers that have experienced this particular problem. In most cases the problem lies in a faulty mapping and has NOTHING to do with the fact its a Compaq, Dell, IBM, etc... Yes you can download the mapping drivers off of Microsoft directly simply by going to the Windows Update site (Start/windows update, and follow the directions). Tho the problem can also lay within a faulty hardware installation or faulty driver installation. This will also cause your system to stop responding during the shut-down screen. This can easily be fixed by either going into your hardware monitor (start/settings/control panal/hardware manager     ) and seeing which hardware drivers are not installed, or run a system check to see if there are any errors withing the programs or hardware on your machine. Either one of those will in fact solve the problem. You can also find solutions by going to a major search engine and typing in "windows 98 shutdown problem" or something along those lines. Again this is not a manufacturers problem it is a simple windows 98 conflict.

I just reloaded Win98se and found it not shutting down also.  I loaded the fix and discovered that I was not waiting long enough.  It seems to take over 60 seconds sometimes before my system shuts down.  I have no problems with shutdown since the patch.

I had this same problem, and all I did was change my pci slot setup. My soundblaster live was in the first pci slot and my ethernet or modem(long time ago) was in the second slot. This screws up the shutdown so what I did was move the ethernet card to the third slot and left a space in between the soundcard. There is some kind of conflict with the pci configuration and doing this works great.

Hope this helps... :)

I had a similar problem - could not physically shut down, unless I pulled the plug. Resolution (thanks to the great posts on this site) was to change the Bios setting that says - Power back on after power failure - to NO. Worked like a charm.

You can set your system to the way it was before.

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q221/5/12.ASP?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0&qry=Q221512&rnk=1&src=DHCS_MSPSS_gn_SRCH&SPR=W98

Had the Shutdown problem with Win98SE as well. I tried fooling around with the BIOS: I turned all Power Management off and set "PnP OS installed" to "Yes".

My newly installed Win98SE didn't like the bios change (it had "PnP Bios" listed with a "problem" icon next to it). But voila, after the reinstall the darn thing actually shuts down like it should...

Have 2 T-bird Athlons (800mhz) networked with a Cyrix MII-300 (300mhz) running as a file server in small network.  All running Win98SE and all 3 having problems with shut down.  Tried the shutdown patch and like everyone else it worked for a while.  Downloaded the "mapped drives" patch and installed and all three machines are shutting down every time, immediately.  So far so good!  Note, I have at most, 5 network drives mapped on one station and the patch notes problem starts with 8 or more I think.   Thanks to those contributing to this thread.

John

There is another possibility no one seems to have addressed.
shutdown problems can also be caused by incompatibility with other IDE devices. On one network I looked after the seagate tape drive in use prevented the server from shutting down, however if you exit to dos first the turn off you PC it will not lock. I have also found the MS patch has worked well

Nothing wrong with Win 98se. The problem is with McAfee anti virus. When I dissabled the software, 98 shutdowns like a baby.

I tried a lot of the fixes mentioned in this thread but nothing worked. Then I ran across a suggested fix that I thought couldn't possibly work but it did. Disable the Exit Windows sound wave.

The shutdown problem related to anti virus software can be fixed by just disabling the scan on shutdown option. I didn't have to disable the software all together.

Glenn

I find that the easy cheat is to leave the sutdown as "re-start in MSDOS"  This way you at least shut down Win98 cleanly, so that a power-down dosen't hurt.

aj24,

There is a known resouce conflict between ATI and SBLive cards. Go to deja.com and do a search with the keywords ATI, SBlive, won't boot, etc.

The fix is to disable certain programs that come with the SBLive card in msconfig.

Anymore I just use NVidia cards to avoid the conflict.

Win98 Shutdown problems can be caused by a variety of different reasons.  The ones is this thread seem predominantly to be the problem of mapped drives.  I have experienced this problem also recently with Win98 SE.  I have applied the MS fix and like so many people have mentioned it only works for awhile. I know in my case it is the Mapped Drives that are causing the problem, because I tested several times. What I have done, is just create a batch file on the users desktop to delete network connections before shutting down.
Example
net use g: /delete

Microsoft has encroached on vendor hardware for this problem.  I have had it several times.  I fixed it bye getting a current driver.  Specifically, netgear network cards supply a new driver that fixes this problem.  Yes, it is a microsoft problem, but they wont admit it.  So some vendors are fixing it.  You have to change out your hardware to find which one is the culprit.  Then leave the new stupp in the machine.  Mine works fine now.  
"YES, CHANGE YOUR HARDWARE!"  Your hardware drivers and microsoft drivers don't get along.

After many months of following this forum, I have finally found the answer for my shutdown problem.  I downloaded the latest version of my BIOS, and now my computer shuts down and off the way it's supposed to.  We have a six-station network with Windows 2000 server, and Windows 98se stations, but had the same problem before we changed from Novell server to Windows 2000 server.  I found out that just because a computer is new, that doesn't mean that it is running the latest version of BIOS for the motherboard.  I hope this helps someone.

We have found a workaround for the shutdown problem (please excuse me if this has already been posted, I am new to this forum). Create a shortcut, command line should be:
C:\WINDOWS\RUNDLL.EXE user,exitwindows
Call it shutdown (or whatever) and use it to exit Windows 98. I have used this several times and it seems to work well.

Just an additional info.  I have been trying to fix my shutdown problem for quiet some time now to no avail, Microsoft fixes didn't last long.  I have discovered that it's the McAfee that makes my machines hang.  I took McAfee from the Autoexec file and Start-up menu and the machine would shutdown.  But if I launch McAfee or do the weekly updates, then my machines won't shut down even if I use the shortcut on C:\WINDOWS\RUNDLL.EXE user,exitwindows or hold the Shift Key to shutdown.

I too have several pcs that freeze during shut down.  I have applied the shut down fix and it holds for a short time but always rears it's ugly head again.

Article Q260067 cites that Windows 98/95 experience this problem when you have a significant number of mapped network drives.

The problem can occur because during the shutdown process a WM_DEVICECHANGE message is broadcast to all top-level windows.  This broadcast apparently informs each window of a DBT_DEVICEREMOVECOMPLETE event.  If a window doesn't respond to the broadcase system message, the computer may stop responding (ie hang).

When I apply the fix it sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.  I have two users who instead of choosing "SHUT DOWN" choose 'RESTART IN DOS MODE'.  Then they power down once they see the C prompt.  

Although it's a bandaid, at least they have exited windows before they shut down and so avoid undue stress on the OS and the infernal scandisk upon boot up.

I think Microsoft should take responsibity for their problem. I always have this problem also, can we just sue Bill Gate for this.

This problem has been causing me headaches for months with no permanent fix yet found.
We run a mixture of hardware platforms inc. Tulip's, Fugitsu's, Compaq, Dell etc and this problem has been seen on all of them. The LAN is a mixture of NT and Novell with well over a 1000 clients.

All of MS fixes have been applied with mixed results.

Interestingly, I recently found MS Q260067 and adding this key to the registry on Win98SE PC's is so far working. Further testing is taking place but might be worth looking at if like me your still having issues.

I have a computer that has Win 98 (NOT Second Edition).  I recently installed an older CD Writer.  Everything seemed to be working fine, start up and shut downs and copies made OK, System was running slow, so I did a Through Scandisk and a Defrag.  System would shut down correctly, but would hang on reboot.  Now system hangs on both.  Please help!!

Oakwind

The way we fixed ours is this:
Click on Start>Log off (username) When the computer logs you off(faster than reboot) don't login again, instead press Ctrl-alt-del and then click on shutdown. This shuts down 100% of the time. It is an extra step, but it has worked for us and the users don't have to wait forever for the computer with the splash screen looking at you.
Another solution:
Click on Start>Restart in MS-DOS mode. When the computer goes to DOS(and it will always) you can then press the shutdown button. Sort of arcaic, but Windoze is like that, you have to either live with it, or find a "workaround" for it. Click.

As I'm sure most of you are aware, there are two patches available from microsoft that are "supposed" to address these problems.  One fixes the win98se shutdown hang, and the other fixes the win9x shutdown hang with "multiple" mapped network drives.  I have experienced the 2nd option on several clients networks with fewer than 8 mapped network drives (microsoft claims that 8 is the typical count).  Although the hot fix has worked in most cases, there has been times when it doesn't.  In this particular case I normally just write a batch file that I have the client execute before shutting down that disconnects all mapped network drives.

For example:
net use s: /d
or whatever your drive letter assignments are

Windows 98 not shutting down - problem.  When I encountered this problem, I scanned for VIRUS, found it, removed virus, problem solved.  

what are mapped drives?  #2  do not have fast shutdown on sys config.??????

I have been working on this darn problem on my computer too. I have narrowed it down to himem.sys. If I rem it from config.sys, I can then shutdown my computer. I tried replacing himem.sys with a fresh one and it still occurs.

I didn't read every reply, but here are a couple of things that I have found in my experiences.  First, if you shut down your system without first closing Outlook (if its open) the system will take what seems like forever, to close.  The other thing is if your running anti-virus software, uncheck the option to scan floppys on shutdown

I did a clean Install of Windows 98 SE and the problem was gone for about 3 months! I suddenly installed directx 8.1 and the problem has come back! Basically over the 3 months I installed program by program as I needed them to pin point what was causing the error! I found it for my system! Now to my knowledge that still makes it a Microsoft problem! Like I said that problem didn't appear for me up until that point. I am running a AMD Athlon 800mhz with over 500mbs of SDRAM, a cd burner, Norton Anti-Virus 2002 (Floppy boot check disabled on shutdown), Directx 8.1, a Sound Blaster Live, Nivida GeForce 2 with MMX 64, and a 20 GIG hard drive. Basic stuff on my machine! All the fixes are also installed and haven't even help to temporarilly fix it for even one shutdown! I am to the point of possibly reformating again and just using Windows 95! I got 3 cd roms of it! Anyone found DirectX be the cause of that error on there system?

I just remembered something I read in here! With the number of people here with this problem is there really a reason we cant all get to gether and sue MicroSoft if only to have are Windows 98 Second Editions replaced or to have our money payed back that we put out for a defective product! After all I am sure they are obviously well aware of this problem by now with those non working fixed and yet are still selling a defective product! I believe that is against the law! Especially over this large period of time!

I just remembered something I read in here! With the number of people here with this problem is there really a reason we cant all get to gether and sue MicroSoft if only to have are Windows 98 Second Editions replaced or to have our money payed back that we put out for a defective product! After all I am sure they are obviously well aware of this problem by now with those non working fixed and yet are still selling a defective product! I believe that is against the law! Especially over this large period of time!

                SUE MICROSOFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so sick of waiting for them to fix this! I am sure the rest of you are also!

well I kinda dont think that we have a right to sue when u sign the agreement they prob put something in there about sueing them over the 98se shutdown problem lol knowing Good Old Billy he'll prob get outta it and show us all that we cant do that

But that is a good thought I would like to use 98 but I would like to see a check from MS but well never see that. I like 98 but the shutdown prob is 1 of a couple things wrong its not as bad as ME XP(havent used it but heard lottsa bad stuff)95 not alot of stuff that 98 has but is pretty stable so I guess ill stick with 98 for a while

Joshs328

I work in a Win95, NT and Win2K environment so my experience with Win98SE is limited to my personal computer. The systems we have (1000-1500) are Dell, Gateway, AOpen, Micon, Midwest Micro, Zenith, and a few Compaq (Military = Low Bid).

After reading most of the posts I remembered a "fix" for 95 that might help but because I have limited access to Win98 can't try it.  The "fix" is:

Start-Run-"type" SYSEDIT-in the WIN.INI file place a ";" in front of run and load.  This is suppose to elimintate conflict with programs shutting down in a specific order. It works like a charm for Win95.  

Oakwind
Nashville, TN

 "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy" - Martin Luther King, JR

I installed win98 se on a machine that was running win95 before. The computer would not shut down from the initial install. I looked at the patches and other work arounds but came up with no solution until I dissabled my USB. Now the machine shuts down. I gues the next step is to find the updated USB driver.

Gary

I have encountered this shutdown problem.  I installed a Linksys NIC and router.  Since then I have had intermittent shutdown and startup errors.  Shuts down fine in safe mode.  I am not sure whether the NIC card is the source of the problem or whether it just caused another problem to manifest itself.  I went through the MS troubleshoot and patch scenario with no results.  I completely uninstalled my Soundblaster live stuff using the "Cleansweep" procedure from Creative.  No difference.  I left the sound card out and disabled autoexec, config and all startup files.  Shutsdown fine.  Renabled autoexec and config.  Shuts down fine.  I selectively disabled startup files one by one starting at the top attempting to shutdown after each disable.  When I disabled the Roxio stuff (directcd and project selector) for a Plextor SCSI CDRW it shutdown fine.  I have a HP photosmart printer on a USB port.  If I uninstall the photosmart completely it shuts down fine.  My Kodac Digital camera on USB causes no problem.  Resulting findings:  With system up and running and everything installed, if I uninstall all HP 100 software for USB printer the system behaves or if I disable Direct CD and Roxio Project selector the system behaves.  This all started after I installed a LinkSys NIC.  Could it be that Win98 SE has a problem controlling drivers with IDE, SCSI, USB and a network running all at the same time?

One detail I forgot to mention above.  With everything installed including HP 100, if I unplug the USB cable from the printer the computer shuts down OK.  I still get the occasional startup error.  vxd ios (04)

TO OAKWIND in Nashville:
I read your post about a remembered "fix" for 95 shutdown problem, to wit,  
"Start-Run-"type" SYSEDIT-in the WIN.INI file place a ";" in front of run and load."
I did it - VOILA!  You da man! Have not had a shutdown hangup in at least 10 shutdowns since, had loaded patch and did all kinds of crap suggested in troubleshooter, never lasted more than one or two shutdowns.

Now can you help me go where I can find out why when I try to reinstall Works 2000 from original disk it gets to first page that says to wait a few moments, but I have waited for hours. Using control-alt-delete indicates MSIEXEC is not responding, (sometimes) and other times it just says Works 2000 setup is not responding. ANYTHING ANYONE can come up with will be appreciated greatly.
Jim Smith    
 

I need the driver for a Compaq notebook....1200XL119...
Ccw32.vxd...where can I get it?

Grim> Don't kill it! Your computer has achieved self awareness and doesn't want to die! Solution: big button, restart and check bios settings

chong420> Your message seems off post. If previous post didn't help, then suggest check that CD is still mapped to correct drive.

98se shutdown problem> Run patches as above, [don't think they work long term though!]. Disable fast shutdown. Kill logo.sys. Limit LASTDRIVE=j  in Config.sys (or less if poss). Pray.

 CapsMan.

For all you having the shutdown problem....try ctrl-alt-del and shutdown one item at a time then reboot. my guess is it is software related not hardware. i found using Office XP or earlier versions is what makes windows 98 hang on shutdown. could be a feature in Office that does not shut down properly when closed. cannot be hardware, there is to many people with different hardware having the same problem. i went into the registry and got rid of MDM (debugger) and CTFMON (which is related to Office). seemed to take care of the problem. caution...back up your registry if you try this.

I think the shutdown problem is definitely in the operating system software. I've tried all the fixes & patches, (with no joy), and I don't have Office.

 CapsMan.
   The Computer Unprofessional.

Hi,

How many shutdown patches you've installed onto your pc?  I've got three patches from Compaq to fix the prob: one fixes the fast shutdown feature of W98se, the other fixes network issue and the last does the job for debugging W98se itself.  It works perfectly for mine, in fact the same prob happens pretty rare.  If you are interested I'll send you those patches.

Cheer
coolkris :-b

coolkris@sinaman.com

Have 10 gig/128 meg ram e-machine with Win98SE.

Have developed intractable shutdown freeze problem in last few weeks, something I never had before.
Have tried: 1. all MS patches 2.Disable AOM 3. disable splash screens 4. disable Fast Shutdown 5. disable virus scan in Run/msconfig. 6. run sfc in Run. 7.etc
Nothing works.
Should I try "fiddling" with PCI bus? PNP Bios? IRQ Steering? (don't understand them)

Any benefit from APCI BIOS enable? How to do this?

My machine works fine for about 5 shutdowns, then freezes for two. Does that signal anything familiar?
Thanks so much. richardhot

As listed above you can create a shortcut on your desk top to shut down windows.
C:\WINDOWS\RUNDLL32.EXE User,ExitWindows

Have tried recommended shutdown shortcuts. They didn't do anything.Shutdown forcing usinf shutdown utilities works but that seems "traumatic"

Thanks.

Please give overview of Power Management tack for APM and ACPI, etc.

Thanks. richardhot

Could someone explain the role,if any,of File System/File System Troubleshooting in Win98SE shutdown problems?

Thank you.
richardhot

Here is something simple I do when I encounter
 problems like the ones you have discribed with win98se. In the "system information which is located under,start,programs,accessories,system tools,system file checker & then from "Tools, then start checking your os files for corrupt and missing files,(you have to have your win98se inserted & ready in your cd drive).Then click start,when a file comes up missing or corrupt click restore(making sure that you are restoring from the drive that has your win98se disk)I would also check your internet explorer files from the tools menu, & reinstall MIE from your disk "if required,because "no matter which browser you use if MIE is corrupt or missing any files "it will effect your system!There is also the version conflict section again from the tools menu(making sure I have the latest versions).Software conflicts,start-up config. as well as any "windows updates & checking your registry are all things that might cause these problems.Those are the places I would check out first just to make sure my system is running straight.Good Luck!
         

Thank you.
I did Start/Run/SFC, which is equivalent to what you're saying, and came up with one bad file which was of no importance.

Appreciate your attention. Wonder if anyone has thoughts on system cache/shutdown freezes; File System/sutdown freezes.
Thanks richardhot

If this shutdown problem suddenly starts-
1. backup your system.
2. restore a previous security (made prior to the problem).

If the problem is gone, it was software related(rebuild from this point).
If the problem remains, it is hardware related(return to latest backup if you want, and try to locate which piece of hardware is the problem).

A further point to note when using MSCONFIG is that if you have a programme that is "not" started by windows, but starts up under its own steam - disabling start up items will not disable it.  In my case my problem was caused by NORTON INTERNET SECURITY which has its own setting option for starting with windows or starting manually.

I only realised this by the fact that the icon was still in the tray when I disabled all startup items with MSCONFIG.

Needless to say, this was the offending software - which I have been running with no problems for over 12 months.

Removed this software (because the problem was still there after uninstalling/reinstalling) and now WIN 98 SE is shutting down again.

Shutdown problem aroused on my AMD athlon xp 1700+, hdd western digital 40GB as master on iDE0 and Maxtor 8GB as slave, when added a secon cd unit (combo sammsung dvd reader cd burner), as master on IDE1, the slave is a cdrom asus 52x. The funny thing is the onboard lan sis900 stopped working, it became impossible to set up or delete from control panel/system, every time I tried to config that card I received a msgsrv32 stopped workin and hang the system, besides the shutdown problem.
At last I disabled from cmos setting the onboard lan and installed a brand new encore with realtek drivers on the last PCI slot free.
Now the computer works fine, the last problem was the new ethernet card didn't work well at 100mbps or in auto mode, I should config to 10mbps.
Every time I've tried to restart the onboard lan sis900 the system hangs on shutdown.
I guess there's a problem with IDE channels and this sis900 lan.
Both of the cd units are on DMA and the HDD with smart enebled, changes to this settings didn't solve the problem.

This incidence may not help anyone that has a shut down problem with 98se but i thought i'd share it anyway. I had tried numerous ways to fix the problem on a clients machine without any success. I almost gave up when, just for something to do, I unticked the "disable fast shutdown" in the msconfig (ticked by default). When i went to shutdown the computer rebooted instead. I tried to shut down again and the computer rebooted instead, again. I edited the msconfig again and put the tick back in the  "disable fast shutdown" and did a shut down. For some unknown reason the computer shuts down all the way everytime. I'm confused but I'm happy and the invoice was paid by another happy customer.

orkerk you may have hit the nail on the head. I've just checked my Win98 gold(first edition) and fast shutdown is indeed unticked by default(relatively new install).

I've never ever had this problem with win98FE........

This is a simple solution that works for me, when all else fails:  hold down your shift key before and during shutdown.  

The first problem i confront was:
- my computer restarts when i tried to shut it down, the only way to shtu it down was by the power switch
- then i install the latest update from Microsoft, but it   still did the same thing
- then a few days later after using my PC this way,  my PC won’t start when i press the power switch after I disconnect the power. To start it a have to jump the pins 14 and 15 of motherboard so it can start.
- Then i suddenly lost my APM capabilities. I can put my PC in suspend mode.
- I reinstall win 98 SE, and still have the same problems, but now, the PC shuts down normally.
- Now a have a new issue. It connects to the internet but the applications don’t recognizes the connection. the act like the PC was not connected to the internet

My PC is Hp pavilion with an AMD-k6 2 processor.

What can i do to solve all this problems?

Do i have a motherboard problem, or is it a software problem?

thanks in advanced for any help........

If there's any private users with this problem,
       http://www.gillit.com/asd/index.htm
has a little app (auto shutdown v4.2) that shuts it down successfully. You can even force shutdown if you get a fussy application that refuses to let go unless manually closed. It can run as a service so even when users log off, it still keeps on running. Better yet, it's freeware to private users but still cheap for corporate use.

I had the same problem with a generic PC and it started doing it again after I patched it so it's not a vendor issue. I also never had a LAN at the time so it's not drive mapping either. I did upgrade IE just before it started doing it again so I'm wondering if there's a rogue DLL causing this. Patching it again didn't solve it but Windows does not overwrite a newer DLL with an older one when patching.

My Idea of an OS is one that operates the system not a self contained package of every piece of software ever invented.

Just a little side note here that I forgot to mention.

I have a Fujitsu 10gig drive and it has no problem *except* that it does not like UltraDMA although it says it's UDMA33 compatible. Since unchecking the DMA option in System Manager and the UDMA setting in the BIOS for that drive, it has worked like a charm and is more stable, (and a lot faster), than my Maxtor 40gig, (which still uses UDMA). I made it my boot drive and it's never failed me after 2 years of extremely heavy use.

2 new Seagate 4 gig drives gave up and a new Maxtor 20gig died completely in my PC during that 2 years so don't be too quick to judge Fujitsu Hard disks. I do put a lot of pressure on my disks which may account for the 3 deaths but the one some of you are putting down seems to keep on chugging along no matter what.

Those of you who may be experiencing problems with Fujitsu drives may want to try disabling DMA transfers in System Manager and UDMA in Bios before condemning the drive. It may be the reason you are experiencing the problems.

My Idea of an OS is one that operates the system not a self contained package of every piece of software ever invented.

Like most people we had this 98se shutdown problem on many but not all machines in our organisation.  Tried all the patches, fixes etc. such as disabling fast shutdown, trawled through innumerable articles and forums such this one but nothing provided a permanent fix.

We finally managed to find a fix which worked for all affected machines and it is one I have not seen anywhere else on this thread so I thought I would post it.


Create the following entry in the registry:
 
Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
Value: ShutDownWaitTime
Type: DWORD
Data: Decimal 4000
 
This is the number of milliseconds to wait prior to shutting down, which equates to 4 seconds.

We eventually found that setting this value to 4000 worked for all pc's although this may vary from host to host, some need a longer wait time than others to shutdown cleanly.

I have had the same shutdown problems with win98 se. I just solved the problem after using all the suggestions here and from other sites it ended up being my ethernet card i had to go to the device manager and disable it in the hardware profile. maybe this is an idea that will work for you too.

  thanks for all the tips

you know - I have had this problem for 4 years on Win98SE and I was frightened to change anything because I was having sooooooooooooooooo much trouble with StudioDV (curiously V1 went to V7 to try to con the public itnto thinking................. oh don't get me started on Pinnacle)

Anyway now I can't even re-install Studio DV (here I go again) I have nothing to loose.  I will return.

It doesn't seem to be referred to in this very long thread, but there's an unofficial Windows98 Second Edition Service Pack 1.5 which contains 5 MS shutdown fixes.

The pack and full details are available from Exuberant Software: http://exuberant.ms11.net/98sesp.html

FWIW it improved the stability of my Win98 system.

Iechyd da!  John
Glannau Mersi, Lloegr.

I had this problem.  I got rid by changing from a Windows NT4 Server domain based LAN to a workgroup based LAN.  It was a home network so junking NT Server was no big deal.

Notleks' registry wheeze possibly improved my ATI all-in-Wonder Pro s/w.  I can exit teletext before the TV without locking the system immediately (some of the time)  but the Win 98 re-boot instead of switch-off is still there.  I downloaded SP1.5 suggested by BigJohnD but have yet to pluck-up the courage to jump...........

ATI s/w is not the best anyway - the 1999 teletext app is worse than the 1997 version and both don't even come close in fuctionality to the 1996 WinTv beauty.

I have had a problem with Win98SE hanging on shutdown since I added a USB2 wireless lan adapter. I tried unchecking fast shutdown & added the MS patches - which worked for a short while then returned.
My bootlog showed everything ending ok, which still puzzles me.
I managed to get round the problem by plugging the adapter into the onboard USB1.1 port. My USB2 ports are an NEC PCI board that I added recently and works well with my ext CD writer.
In my case it looks as though the hang is somehow related to my USB2 card - but I haven't worked out why yet.
I discovered my solution while I was trying to rule out various components, I wasn't expecting this to fix things, my first choice was going to be to look at conflicts with my video card or sound card.  

i have tried many of the mentioned fixes to no available so i, restart in safe mode. and shutdown from there in a second, brian
i am new to windows 98