Hanging during a Shutdown?

[JohnATL]

Hello, my W2K Prof. op system hangs consistently when trying to Shutdown, giving me a dialog box saying that it is trying to close "Sample". I have no idea what this is. Any idea what it may be, or how I should investigate and eliminate this hanging problem? thanks very much.

John

 

[Rhombus65]

Did you try looking in Task Manager for the Sample process?

If you were able to locate it you could try stopping the process manually and then shutting down your compter.

If your computer shuts down properly with the process killed then you just need to eliminate the process from starting. To do this I use "Spybot S&D". Open Spybot and go to Tools -> System Startup

Jim: A+, MCP W2k, Master Electrician

"The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing..."
-Albert Einstein

 

[JohnATL]

Thanks for the suggestion of trying Task Manager, Jim. Unfortunately, I don't see anything named Sample or anything like that. I also have done a search for "sample.*" on the hard drive, and it comes up with a few things, but the only thing that even looks suspect is the (sample.mov & sample.qtif) files that come with the Quicktime movie player.

Any other suggestions from anyone would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[bcastner]

I would do the steps in faq608-4650

 

[JohnATL]

Thanks for the suggestion of trying the CWshredder and HiJack This, etc. steps. CWshredder found nothing and said my system was "completely clean". HiJack This of course found all kinds of stuff. I searched the .log file for the word "sample" (the app that is hanging), but no sign of that word. Not sure what else to do. Ideas? Thanks.

 

[Rhombus65]

Have you tried serching the registry (regedit) for sample?
You could have something left over from the removal of some software or something else.

You might want to try using "Tuneup Utilities 2004" to clean up your registry. I use it all the time to clean the registry on computers I repair. It does a great job!

You can download it from

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3891.html

Jim: A+, MCP W2k, Master Electrician

"The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing..."
-Albert Einstein

 

[bcastner]

My point is being missed here. No matter how I write a Windows process, I can name the title bar "Sample" or whatever I feel like; I have some control over the PID in Task Manager; I have some control over the program ID in task manager; etc.

"Sample", my guess, is not the name or registry entry for the process. It is what it declares itself once run as an ID.

Which means only that searching for "Sample" is unlikely to resolve the issue. You need to find the underlying registry RUN or startup entry, likely not called Sample, that ocassions the Windows Title service called "Sample".

 

[JohnATL]

Thanks Bcastner, and I understand your point, but I don't really know where to proceed from here. As I said, I tried the items in FAQ608-4650 but this hanging application still seems to show up. I'm glad to try anything else that might be on the right track...if you think of anything, please let me know.


Thanks,

John

 

[bcastner]

Let use the resource kit tool and see how far we get.

Direct download link to Win2k reskit shutdown.exe:

http://www.dynawell.com/reskit/microsoft/win2000/shutdown.zip

Unzip and place shutdown.exe in c:\winnt\system or any reachable path.

Start, Run, shutdown -s -f -t 0

Does it shutdown now?

If so, create a shorcut on your desktop to shutdown.exe, with the parameters as shown above.

 

[JohnATL]

Hi bcaster....I don't why this is the case, but "shutdown" does not appear to do anything at all. It does not shut down the PC. As you said, I unzipped to winnt\system and tried your shutdown command from both Start>Run and also from a command prompt. It doesn't seem to do anything at all. Thanks.

John

 

[bcastner]

shutdown -s -f -t 0

If you just enter shutdown it does essentially nothing as a safety measure.

 

[rislejay]

I have not tried the reporting feature of UPHclean but you may want to give it a try. You can download the file from

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...6D-8912-4E18-B570-42470E2F3582&displaylang=en

Good luck

 

[JohnATL]

Thanks....I did try the shutdown command with the listed delimiters too, but nothing happens. I'll look into this UPHclean too...thanks. I'd like to get to the root cause of what this "sample" application is that hangs....not just a work around. Although, that's certainly better than nothing.

 

[bcastner]

JohnATL,

Do the steps in faq608-4650 to see if you cannot discover the source of "Sample."