Why wont XP restart or shutdown without me pushing the power button?

My laptop wont turn off or restart when i choose it from the start menu.......i have to just hold down the power button and wait for it to turn off and i know thats not good........every now and then it takes about 5-7 minutes for it to shut down and it never did that before. Please help me understand why this is happeneing and let me know if there is anything i can do to fix it. thank you

This question was answered on May 10, 2006. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

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According to Microsoft it could be one of a couple different issues The first thing to check is have you changed anything recently Certain software not allowing windows to close it or drivers for your hardware not allowing windows to close them will cause the "soft boot" options in start to not work So you will need to go and either find a patch for the software to fix it, or get new drivers that don't hang Windows.

If you dont remember what you have changed but you know when, you could try to use Windows Xp's built in system restore to restore your computer to a previous date when this problem did not happen Do realize however that all programs and drivers installed after the date you pick will be deleted, but pictures, email and text files will not.

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Posted by Darren of Chandler-Gilbert Community College on May 10, 2006

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