This is odd. This just happened all of the sudden. I can't seem to shut down or restart using the shutdown or restart button in the Start Menu. I can't log-off as well, however, I can switch users and then shut down from there. I have gone into the task manager and shut down each tasks one by one and tried to see if I can shut it down. It shuts down when I "end task" the System32 process. In addition, when I do click on shutdown or restart, the only thing it shuts down is my Norton Anti-virus (which disappears from my systray) and that's it. Still in Windows. Anyone has any idea? I have gone through all the 15 steps shutdown but honestly it was working before without any additional software or hardware.

Windows rarely if not ever just screws up that much by itself. If you can use a different profile to shut down then something had to be loaded on the damaged profile. Somehow by someone, something got loaded. I would use a different virus scanner than Norton’s for a second opinion. Trend Micro has a free online scanner that I have used to find things my Norton’s has missed. There are others as well. You may want to use the scanner at PC Pit Stop. It will find any code breaks in Windows, just incase there is one. Look in the upper-left section for "Full Tests". That way you can check everything. You may want to download the latest version of Ad-Aware as well. Chances that this is caused by Window are almost non-existent, so rack your brain and try to remember what happened prior to it starting. Also if it is a virus or gag, it could have been installed a year ago with activation date encoded.

Believe it or not, your comments helped. I did a FULL TEST from pc pitstop and yes... it did find a system32 virus--something NORTON didn't find. I re-updated Norton and did another full scan with it. Disappointing that it didn't find anything. Regardless, working my way now on eliminating the virus problem. I'll update you on the problem. In addition, you mentioned Ad-Aware. I was wondering, everything that Ad-Aware detects, is it safe to delete all of it?

Yup, corrected the problem. A system32.exe file was residing within my Windows Directory and registry was executing it. After following some removal guidelines, I managed to get it back working again. However, I do have a question. In the guidelines, it told me that I should search for all files containing System32.exe. I see a file called: "SYSTEM32.EXE-2D728960.pf" residing in my C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch Could this be a leftover file? Can I delete it?