RPC May Cause System to Stop Responding during Shutdown

When you perform a system shutdown, the Spooler service may stop responding (hang), causing the system to stop responding and not completely shut down.

During a shutdown, the Spooler service will attempt to perform a clean shutdown. The Spooler service may use remote procedure calls (RPCs) to converse over the network during this clean shutdown process. When this occurs, the system may stop responding as the server is not able to listen for a reply of the RPC. The RPC deadlock occurs infrequently.

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Windows NT 4.0 or Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in Windows NT 4.0 and Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition. This problem was first corrected in Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 4.0 and Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition Service Pack 4.