Note This document is based on the original spoken Support WebCast transcript. It has been edited for clarity.

Jonas Svensson: Hello. My name is Jonas Svensson. I've been involved in technical support in some form or another for the last six years. I spent the last year at Microsoft supporting Microsoft® Windows® Millennium Edition, Windows 3.11, Windows 95, and Windows 98.

Today we are going to talk about potential issues that may arise while attempting to shut down or restart Windows Millennium Edition (slide 2). We will provide a base of procedures for troubleshooting these issues and also discuss possible resolutions. This WebCast is intended for the average computer user and will provide information helpful in troubleshooting Windows Millennium Edition shutdown issues. Let's begin.

This presentation describes troubleshooting steps to help solve problems that may occur when shutting down Windows Millennium Edition. Turning off or shutting down Windows is something that every computer user does or has done. It is not a task that requires a great deal of thought and is often taken for granted. However, when difficulties arise during the shutdown process, it has a far-reaching impact on the overall computing experience. These impacts can be minor, such as Scandisk running at every startup or they can be catastrophic, in the case of corruption or permanent data loss.

In this WebCast, we will examine the following topics (slide 3): learn the steps of the shutdown process; the Windows process is broken into discrete steps. We'll discuss each and examine how these steps can help identify issues during the shutdown process. We'll also briefly discuss Advanced Power Management (APM), and Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI). Being aware of how APM and ACPI relate to the shutdown steps will better enable us to isolate a shutdown issue. This leads us to our next point: the types of devices and programs that may interfere with standby or shut down. Being aware of particular types of hardware or software that may interfere with the shut down is important in the troubleshooting process.

Next we will become familiar with the basic steps to resolve shutdown issues. Once we are familiar with the shutdown process, types of hardware and software that may interfere with it, we can begin to resolve a shutdown issue. Our strategy here is to identify and then eliminate what is causing the issue.

Before we start [the main discussion], I would like to take some time to introduce some material you may find useful in troubleshooting this and other computing issues. Listed here (slide 4) are some Microsoft Press® titles, Troubleshooting Your PC, Windows Me Step by Step, Do-It-Yourself Microsoft Windows Me. I won't go into detail about any of these specific titles, but I wanted to make you aware that they existed. This slide also lists the address of the Microsoft Press Web site. It contains a full listing of all MSPress titles and can be found at the address on the slide, http://mspress.microsoft.com/.

Another item I would like to make you aware of, built-in Help (slide 5). Most Microsoft products offer a Help file or troubleshooter to assist in resolution of a variety of issues. The Windows Millennium Edition Startup and Shutdown Troubleshooting Wizard is located in the Help and Support Center in Windows Millennium Edition and at the following Microsoft Web site, http://support.microsoft.com/support/windows/tshoot/. This simple, question-driven interface contains step-by-step instructions on how to resolve the most common startup and shutdown issues.

To understand the items that may interfere with a shutdown, we need to understand the shutdown process itself (slide 6). When shutting down Windows, the computer goes through the following shutdown steps. Writing any cached information to disk. Here the computer writes all pertinent data stored in RAM and/or virtual memory to the hard drive. This is a hardware driver-specific task where the operating system interacts with the hard disk and the memory.

Next we have closing any open programs. Here the computer attempts to close all open programs. As you might have guessed, this is a program-specific task where the operating system interacts with individual programs. After the programs are closed, Windows informs device drivers of the impending shutdown. The computer sends an impending shutdown message to individual device drivers telling them that the system is about to be shutdown. This is a hardware driver-specific task where the operating system interacts with device drivers.

Next we have playing the Exit Windows sound file. Here the computer simply plays the specified Exit Windows sound file. This is a file-specific task where the operating system interacts with the file specified as the Exit Windows sound.

Finally, the computer presents the "It is now safe to turn off your computer screen" or it automatically shuts down. The computer will either display the shutdown message or turn itself off, depending on the power management options installed. This is a hardware driver-specific task where the operating system interacts with the power management driver installed.

You can see that all five of these steps interact with applications, files, or device drivers. This will be important to remember when we get to the troubleshooting steps.

Now I'd like to talk a little bit about Advanced Power Management and Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (slide 7). In January of 1992, Microsoft Corporation and Intel Corporation released a power management specification called Advanced Power Management, or APM. APM extended previous power management schemes and added support for new features. This specification has been revised twice, once in September of 1993 and once in February of 1996. It is meant primarily for managing portable systems and laptops. APM is very dependent on hardware for regulating power management. In fact, the system BIOS could, to some extent, manage the system without any cooperation from the operating system. In reality, the APM-compliant operating system's role in power management was in providing interface to communicate with the BIOS.

Advanced Configuration and Power Interface is an open industry specification co-developed by Compaq, Intel, Microsoft, Phoenix, and Toshiba. Released in November of 1998, ACPI establishes industry-standard interfaces for operating systems-directed configuration and power management on laptops, desktops, and servers. ACPI enhances the existing collection of power management code into a well-defined power management and configuration interface. This specification enables new power management technology to evolve independently in operating systems and in hardware, while ensuring that they continue to work together in the future. ACPI took primary control for power management away from the hardware and made it the responsibility of the operating system.

A couple of important points to remember here are that APM, Advanced Power Management, is the older of the specifications and that it is hardware dependent and originally aimed at managing power on portable computers. ACPI, on the other hand, is designed for desktops, laptops, and servers, and is less power dependent, and it abstracts or separates the hardware from the operating systems and gives control of the power management to the OS.

Now we're going to talk about hardware devices and software applications that may interfere with the shutdown (slide 8). Sound cards, network adapters, and video cards are some of the more common devices that can interfere. However, almost any improperly installed or malfunctioning device driver can hinder a shutdown. There are also cases where software may cause a disruption in the shutdown process. Some examples are a virus, antivirus software, system maintenance programs, and download accelerators.

Now that we know a bit about the shutdown process, power management, and hardware and software that may interfere with it, let's look at resolving the issue (slide 9). Remember the steps in the shutdown process. The first step is to write cached information to disk. This is a driver-specific task. Close open programs. This is a program-specific task. Inform drivers of impending shutdown. This is a device driver-specific task. Play exit sound file. This is a file-specific task. Present the "It is safe to turn off your computer" message or power off the computer. This is a device driver-specific task.

While it may not be possible to identify which step is failing, it is possible to divide the shutdown failure into one of three areas: program failure, file failure, or hardware failure. Please note that hardware can include faulty devices as well as faulty device drivers.

Now that we've defined three areas to investigate, we need to continue to isolate the issue. Let's start with the Exit Windows sound file (slide 10).

To determine if the shutdown problem is caused by a damaged Exit Windows sound file, click the Start button and point to Settings. Click Control Panel to open the Control Panel, and then double-click Sounds and Multimedia. Click Exit Windows in the Sound Events box so that you can note the name and location of the Exit Windows sound file. This will save time if you need to change this back. Once you have the file name and location noted, please click None in the name box. This will set the Exit Windows sound file to none. Click OK and then restart your computer. If your computer does not shut down correctly, restore your original Exit Windows sounds from the Control Panel. If the computer does shut down properly, your Exit Windows sound file is probably damaged and must be replaced.

Now that we have eliminated the Exit Windows sound from our list of possible shutdown blockers, let's move on to eliminating programs. To do this, we'll use the System Configuration utility or MSCONFIG (slide 11). The picture here is the interface that you'll see when you open this. Just as a quick side note, MSCONFIG is one of the most useful utilities that ships with Windows Millennium Edition, and I've used it extensively in my time here as a support professional.

To open MSCONFIG, click the Start button, click Run, and then type msconfig in the Open box, and then click OK. Once in MSCONFIG, you'll see a screen similar to what appears here on the slide. Click Selective startup and then click to clear the Load startup group items check box. Click Apply, and then click OK. You'll be asked if you would like to restart your computer. Click Yes to go ahead and do so. Once the computer is restarted, it will not be running any programs that are automatically loaded from the Startup folder, the configuration files, or the system registry.

Shut down or restart the computer again. What to do if your computer does not restart will be discussed in the next slide. If your computer does restart correctly, one of your startup programs is probably causing this issue. To determine which Startup program is the culprit, start MSCONFIG again. The strategy here is to add the Startup programs back one at a time until you can identify the one causing the problem.

To do this, navigate to the Startup tab in MSCONFIG, and then click to select the check box next to the first program listed. Click OK, and then click Yes to restart your computer. Once the computer is restarted, it will not be running any programs that are automatically loaded, except the ones specified by you. If you can restart or shut down the computer successfully, repeat the process until you identify the program that is blocking the shutdown. Once the blocking program is identified, the issue can be resolved by either uninstalling the program or obtaining an updated copy of the program from the software manufacturer.

On the last slide, we looked at the Startup group for blocking programs. Now let's try to determine if the shutdown problem is caused by a command or driver that is loaded from the Win.ini file, the System.ini file, the static VxDs, or the systems environment variables (slide 12). Again, we will use MSCONFIG to further isolate this issue. If you remember, we push the Start button, select Run, and type msconfig, and that brings us to the MSCONFIG, which is displayed here. We will continue our selective startup and clear the rest of the check boxes: Process System.ini file, Process Win.ini file, Load Static VxDs, and Load environment variables have all been unchecked. Once the check boxes have been removed, click OK, and click Yes to restart the computer.

When the computer has restarted, it will be in what is refer to as a clean boot. It is called this because the computer is not running any Startup folder programs, system registry-specified programs, static VxDs, drivers from configuration files System.ini or Win.ini, or commands from the environment variables. From here, restart the computer again to see if the problem has been isolated. If the computer does shut down and/or restart properly, then we have isolated it to an item in the static VxDs, System.ini, Win.ini, or environment variables. We can then work backwards to add items back to each category, one at a time, until we find the item that is causing the shutdown problem. If the computer still does not shut down properly, the next items we'll examine are the device drivers.

Now that we have put the computer into a clean boot, the next items to disable are device drivers. Again, we can use MSCONFIG (slide 13). If we click the Advanced button located in the lower right of the General tab, we are presented with the following options. The important items we can disable here are the display adapter and the 32-bit protected mode hard drive controller. Once again, the strategy is to disable the device and restart the computer. If it then restarts or shuts down properly, the issue is caused by one of the disabled drivers. If the computer still does not shut down properly, additional device drivers will need to be disabled. We have used MSCONFIG to disable as many device drivers as possible, so we will need to move to another interface.

Now that we have exhausted our resources in MSCONFIG, we'll move on to a device driver-oriented interface. This interface is called Device Manager (slide 14). This is the interface that we use to disable sound cards, network adapters, and other devices.

The easiest way to access Device Manager and disable device drivers is to right-click My Computer and select Properties. From there, click the Device Manager tab. Double-click a device type to expand it; Sound, video and game controllers, for example. Click one of the listed devices and then click the Properties button. Once in the properties, on the lower part of the dialog box, you will see a check box for Disable Windows Hardware Profile. Click OK, and then click OK again to restart your computer. By doing this, you'll disable the device driver for that particular device and it will not be loaded the next time the computer starts. In our example, again, we've disabled the sound, video, and game controllers.

Once the device has been disabled, test to determine if the issue is resolved by restarting your computer. If your computer does not shut down or restart correctly, disable a different item and continue testing. While in Device Manager, you'll want to continue testing and disabling devices such as sound cards, network adapters, and possibly display adapters, until you find one that is causing the shutdown issue.

If, after disabling sound, video, and network adapters in the Device Manager, the computer is still not shutting down correctly, the next item we can look at is Advanced Power Management, APM (slide 15). Another quick note here: Not all computers will have APM features. If a computer has APM available, you will see it listed in the Device Manager under System Devices.

To isolate APM from our shutdown issue, we will once again use Device Manager. Pictured here are the settings for Advanced Power Management. You can see the two options, Force APM 1.0 mode, Disable power status polling mode. To get into this screen, double-click the System Devices branch in Device Manager to expand it, double-click Advanced Power Management in the Device list, and click the Settings tab. Once you get to the Settings tab for APM, the first thing we're going to do is force APM 1.0 mode. Once this is done, the computer will be restarted, and again, shut down or restart it to test and see if the issue has been resolved. If the computer still does not shut down properly, then check the check box for Disable power status polling, restart your computer and test again. If the computer does not shut down correctly, APM can also be disabled. This is done from the General tab using the check box for Disable in this hardware profile. Again, a third step would be to disable APM entirely, restart the machine, and test the shutdown process once again.

If, after modifying the properties of the Advanced Power Management, the computer still does not shut down correctly, the next place to turn for clues is the system log files (slide 16). We can look in the startup log file, Bootlog.prv, to find information about problems that occur during shutdown. The Bootlog.prv file is a hidden file in the root folder of drive C. If your computer is configured to hide system files, you will need to unhide them to view this log file.

To do this, double-click My Computer. Once you have My Computer open, navigate to the Tools menu, then click Folder Options. Click the View tab, and click to clear the Hide protected operating system files check box, and then click Yes. When you are prompted to confirm this action, click OK.

Now we can search for the Bootlog.prv file. The easiest way to do this is by using the search for files and folders from the Start menu. If you still cannot find this file in your hard disk, it is possible to create a new one. To do this, restart your computer. While the computer is starting up, press and hold the CTRL key. This will present you with the System Startup Boot menu. When the Startup menu is displayed, use the UP ARROW and DOWN ARROW keys to choose Logged, and then press Enter. By doing this your computer will start up with a log file and will create a new one, so that you can view this file to look for troubleshooting clues on how to resolve a shutdown issue. Once we have Startup log file opened, such as this one here, the key items to look for are "Terminate =" entries. These entries, generally located at the bottom of the file, might provide clues about the cause of the problem.

Any process that is started with a Terminate = entry and contains a matching End Terminate entry is completed successfully. The strategy here is to look for a Terminate = entry without a matching End Terminate entry. Some common ones that you may come across: Terminate = Query Drivers. This is a memory manager problem. Your computer might have a defective memory chip or damaged files. You may want to try reinstalling Windows. Terminate = Reset Display. This is display adapter-related and the resolution here may be to try installing an updated video adapter driver. Terminate = RIT. This may be a timer-related problem with the sound card or an older mouse driver. Try installing updated drivers again. Terminate = Win32. This error message you will see if a program is not shutting down properly. Try quitting all programs before shutting down Windows.

Once an issue has been identified, the next step is resolving it (slide 17). If the issue is related to the Exit Windows sound file, then the resolution would be to replace the file. This can be done by either reinstalling the application that provided the sound file or by re-extracting the file from the original Windows media. If the issue is caused by software, the resolution is to obtain an updated release of the software from the manufacturer, uninstall the software, or simply disable the software from loading at startup. If the issue is caused by a device driver, then the resolution is to obtain an updated driver from the manufacturer. Alternatively, the device can be disabled until a new driver is available from the manufacturer.

That's pretty much it for the presentation today. What I have here now is some resource information (slides 18, 19, 20), some KB articles (Microsoft Knowledge Base articles) that I have used in creating this WebCast. There are 10 of them listed here and they are all very helpful. If you have the time, I recommend that you take a look at these and just read through them yourself.

What we're going to do now is we're going to kick it over to Jason to begin the Q&A session. I thank you very much for you time. Jason.

Jason Bennett: Thanks for that presentation, Jonas. A couple of quick notes before we move on to the Q&A portion of this support WebCast. If you would like to have a copy of the PowerPoint® slides, be sure you download the file from the Web site. To access information on all upcoming Support WebCasts and the archive content from all past WebCasts, an easy to remember URL is http://support.microsoft.com/webcasts/.

The Q&A portion of the support WebCast is intended to encourage further discussion of the support WebCast topic. However, one-on-one product support issues are outside the scope of the support WebCast. If you do need technical assistance, please submit an incident on the Web or call Microsoft Product Support Services and speak to a support professional.

We do have just a couple of questions in the queue at this point.

So the first question: You mentioned that Windows can automatically turn a computer off. Mine does not do this. How can I make Windows turn my computer off automatically when I choose Shut Down?

Jonas: That's an excellent question. That's typically a function of the power management installed on your computer. As we discussed here briefly, Advanced Power Management or Advanced Configuration and Power Interface needs to be installed and available on the computer. The reason your computer is not shutting down automatically is either due to the support not being installed on your computer (the BIOS does not support Advanced Power Management) or the driver is not properly installed on the computer.

My advice to you would be to update the system BIOS, if possible, via BIOS flash; contact your motherboard or computer manufacturer for that information. Or to use the Control Panel and get into the Device Manager, like we used in the display here, this presentation, and take a look at the Advanced Power Management and see if it actually is installed on your computer. Take a look at that. Try changing the settings, like we did here in the presentation, and see if that doesn't help.

Jason: In one of the troubleshooting steps, you mentioned disabling APM. Can you disable ACPI?

Jonas: ACPI, as I mentioned in the presentation, is an enhancement of APM, and as such, is not an item that can be disabled and enabled, per se. So to answer the question, no; ACPI cannot be disabled. However, that is not to say that the different settings within ACPI itself cannot be modified; they can. For example, if you have an ACPI-controlled System button or a Power button, you can modify the properties of that Power button so that when you push the Power button, your machine turns off. Your machine goes into Hibernation mode; your machine turns into Standby mode. So although ACPI cannot be uninstalled, it can be modified to give you greater functionality with the devices that you do have, your Power button and what not.

Jason: Great. You use MSCONFIG in your troubleshooting steps. Is this only available in Windows Me (Millennium)?

Jonas: That's a great question. MSCONFIG originally came out with Windows 98 and it is available, therefore, in Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, and Windows Millennium Edition. Again, to access it, you push the Start button, select Run, and type msconfig. While I didn't go over every single aspect of MSCONFIG, it is, as I mentioned, probably the first place to go when troubleshooting issues that involve startup or shut down, particularly programs that start from the Startup group or from the registry.

Jason: We are down to the last question in the queue. I want to take just a moment to solicit some feedback for today's Support WebCast. If you've got any comments or suggestions about today's WebCast, past WebCasts we've done, or topics for future discussion, you can, of course, send us an e-mail message about that to feedback@microsoft.com, and just make sure you put "Support WebCasts" in the subject line. Otherwise, it won't get routed to us.

Last question in the queue is: You mentioned disabling the Windows exit sound to prevent shutdown errors caused by a corrupted sound file. How would I get the sound file back if I determine that it was corrupted?

Jonas: Okay. That's another good question. One of the easiest ways to get the sound file back would be to extract the file from the original Windows install media. Now while it's beyond the scope of this presentation, MSCONFIG, in Windows Millennium Edition, does have the ability to interface with what is called the System File Checker. What the System File Checker does is it enables an interface so that you can extract original files off of your Windows CD-ROM. So, for instance, if your Windows sound file gets damaged and you want that original Windows sound file back, the easiest way to get there would be to go into MSCONFIG, use the option there to launch System File Checker, and go ahead and extract the file.

Alternatively, it is possible to copy a file from another computer that's running the same version of Windows from the Windows directory onto a floppy disk or into an e-mail and send it to another person. While that's probably not the preferred method, because it can introduce viruses or some other outside sources, it is also another method of doing it.

So to reiterate, basically, there are three ways of doing it. One way would be to restore the file off the original media using System File Checker and the Extract utility. Another would be to copy the file. And the third, if you have a sound file that's provided from a third-party application, would be to reinstall that application so that you get the sound file back.

I hope that answers all your questions for today.

Jason: Yes, we have answered all the questions that were submitted today so that's going to wrap up our session. I want to thank all of you for joining us and I do hope the information was useful to you. Again, we are very interested in your feedback regarding this WebCast program. You can send us feedback, comments, and suggestions at any time using the e-mail alias feedback@microsoft.com. If you do use that alias, please be sure to include "Support WebCasts" in the subject line. We hope you join us again in the near future. Thank you and good-bye.