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Win98SE won't tell me it's safe to switch off

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euston

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Sep 8, 2002
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I cannot see the reassuring orange letters telling it's safe to switch off the power. I get left at the splash screen. Windows does actually shutdown safely. It just won't tell me.

Owzat! On ya way, back to the pavilion!
 
ongoing issue with the 98 versions. The majority have to do with the hardware detector setting up a second network card which shuts down in the first instance then can't shutdown in the second instance because it is already shut down.

You could always put a shutdown shortcut on the desktop and force the shutdown. You'll have to find it on your own, I've forgotten the exact stuff, but it is uses user.exe and bypasses whatever is the error.

There was also a Microsoft fix but it was pretty much worthless as the problem seemed to come back some weeks later.



Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
 
There is a long discussion here:

thread615-4131


~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Einstein
[tab][navy]For posting policies, click [/navy]here.
 
In common with so many other Win98SE users, I have continually suffered from this problem of hang-up at shutdown. A solution is to watch the hard disk activity light (if you have one). If you get to the page which says "Windows is shutting down" but the hard disk lamp goes out for more than 15 seconds, just switch off the main power to the computer and switch it back on again 10 seconds later. I have never found this to cause any problem.

However, prompted by this thread, I looked into the matter a bit more. I was having this problem about 1 shutdown in every 5. So I looked for a download of a fix, and from various internet sites was directed to a programme called Shutdown Now. This was quite widely advertised as available for a free download, but each time I tried it I was directed to an obscure German T-Mobile site.

Eventually I found a source at this url :-


This was, as you will note, via PC World.

The download was about 1.5 mb., and was a WINZIP file.

You have to unzip it, and then run the resulting .exe file which is generated (this is the installation program).

I am still evaluating this program, but thus far have experienced not a single failure to shut down correctly.

It seems clear from the previously posted comprehensive material that, while a WIN 98SE based problem, it manifrests itself in different ways, depending on your PC configuration, and in particular the number of mapped drives one has. I can only comment that so far Shutdown Now works fine for me.

colin 4228
 
You can also create a shutdown (and for that matter, a reboot) icon via shell32.dll.

For the shutdown icon, create a shortcut (.lnk) on your desktop, right click on the shortcut icon, select "properties" and paste
"C:\WINDOWS\RUNDLL.EXE shell32.dll,SHExitWindowsEx 1"
(without the "s) into the "target" line, and "C:\WINDOWS" (without the "s) into the "Start in" line, that is assuming the windows subdirectory is located on your c drive.

For the reboot icon do the same, but paste
"C:\WINDOWS\RUNDLL.EXE shell32.dll,SHExitWindowsEx 2"
into the target line.

Steve
 
I cannot see the reassuring orange letters telling it's safe to switch off the power."

I thought you only got that message on old "AT" power supplies. You don't get it with "ATX" power supplies. Sounds like there is nothing wrong with your PC; you are expecting a message that you won't get with a more modern PC.

Jim

 

It is an old machine with an AT power supply.


Owzat! On ya way, back to the pavilion!
 

Found the problem - it's a setting in the BIOS setup power options, nothing directly to do with Windows 98. Thanks all for your contributions.

:)

Owzat! On ya way, back to the pavilion!
 
Hi, My 1999 Compaq Armada 4120 (seen better days haha, keyboard works intermittently so I now have it on a desk with a external keyboard). It has the instant shutdown feature where the "Windows Is Shutting Down" splash screen appears for about 10-15 seconds and then it just turns off. But about every 3-4th time I shut down it just stays on the splash screen for ever. When it does this I just wait about 30 seconds and press the power button to manually shut it down as I know after about 30 seconds it is safe to shut down. It is still an issue though that I would like to get fixed.
 
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