We are an OEM that builds electronics assembly systems, in our machine is a PC running Windows XP Professional that provides the interface for the operator. A few of our systems have begun to intermittently hang on shutdown. So far we have seen it on three machines. There have been no changes to the hardware, or drivers we are putting on these machines. The PC is supposed to shutdown to the point were it says "It is now safe to turn off your computer" but it hangs when the only thing on the screen is the default windows background and the mouse pointer. The mouse moves, but that is it. It doesn't respond to ctrl-alt-del, or any other input. This has been reported 5 times, and in all cases there is nothing in any log file that seems to indicate where the problem might be. I assume we have a bad driver or device, but the problem only happens once every 5-10 shutdowns, and only after the machine is powered on for some time. I just turned on verbose status messages, but they haven't shut the machine down since. What I'm wondering is: Is there some way to get windows to log all shutdown events? I'd really like to know what it was doing when it stopped. Can anyone else think of something I can look at, or a better way to debug this? 1 person got this answerI do too

Hi,1. Software problem? Aprogram/process which can's be terminated?2. Old article (but XP is getting old) see if this article suggests anything.http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/shtdwnxp.htmDon

When I worked on the Windows Helpdesk, this usually turned out to be an antivirus program, trying to run on shutdown.If you set yours to do that, disable that feature & it might make the problem vanish.

Don, I've read that article a few times, and I suspect our problem is related to a device or driver installed in the system. Unfortunately because the problem is so intermittent the normal debug procedures don't help. If I disable or swap out some device, it may not hang, but that doesn't really tell me anything. It could take a few weeks of replacing stuff on these machines to narrow down the problem (Given that in all cases the machines were powered-up for at least 8 hours each time the problem occurred.) We need ship these things in a much shorter time-frame than that. David, I verified that we are not running AV on shutdown. There are also no suspicious events in the event log, all applications, and services appear to stop normally. The last message logged is "The Event log service was stopped." We turned on the "Verbose vs normal status messages" policy, and it certainly does display more information. But all the extra information is displayed before the "Windows is shutting down..." message is displayed in the Shutdown "Please Wait..." dialog. Does anyone know what Windows is doing between the time when the "Windows is shutting down..." dialog box disappears, and the PC actually turns off? Because that is were it 'hangs'

then, it's probably getting to the shutdown point before putting up that old screenI would just tell the users, "when it gets to the point that all you have is a mouse pointer and ctrl/alt/delete won't workTURN THE DAMNED THING OFF!"

lol! If it were only that simple. I'm brushing off my WinDBG kernel debugger now, hopefully putting the machine in Debug mode doesn't cause the problem to never happen again... We think the problem is related to a new rev of a touch screen monitor installed on the machine. However, I can't 'prove' it so I have no ammo to give to the vendor. Does anyone know if there is a similar feature to this: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/244139 in windows XP?

Wow, there is a version of the dump on keystroke feature for XP: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc266483.aspx. But it requires a PS/2 Keyboard.

re: a suggestion on 'proving' that new monitor is the source of the problemdisconnect it, plug in a 'regular' non-touchscreen typeshutdown/restart in SAFE MODE, make sure the old monitor isn't showing up in device manager [what we used to call a ghost]if it IS there, delete it & uninstall the sw that came with the touch screenreboot into normal modetry a shutdownif you get the old orange IT IS NOW SAFE..., tell the vendor about THAT.

I too had the same problem: My winxp pro sp3 machine would hang on the blank screen after the "saving your settings" popup window closes, and I still had mouse activity. My tedious method of diagnosing the cause was to go through my device manager and attempt to download updated drivers for all of the devices in the computer. After updating the drivers for my Logitech LX 710 wireless mouse+keyboard combo, the problem disappeared! I've gone through 50+ shutdown/restart cycles since with not a single hang.In retrospect it makes a bit of sense that it was the mouse driver hanging the system, because that was the last thing left enabled at shutdown. Much grief could have been saved had I made that small observation weeks ago. Grrr.If you haven't installed updated mouse and keyboard drivers, then give that a try.Good luck.