My windows xp pro takes 20 minutes to shut down. I have scanned for viruses and spyware, but I am clean. I have no clue on what is slowing it down. Start up is fine. What could it be?

http://aumha.org/win5/a/shtdwnxp.php

Not sure if these are covered in Per's suggestion but here are some registry changes that could solve the problem. Hkey current User Expand Control Panel Highlight Desktop Auto End tasks Change to 1 Hung App Timeout Change to 100 Wait To kill App Timeout change to 100 If you want to speed up your Start/Program search Change Menu Show Delay to 0 (Zero)

What i would do is create a shortcut file on the desktop by right clicking with the mouse, going to new and selecting "shortcut". A dialogue box will open and under the heading "Type the location of the item" type in the command exactly as follows: shutdown -s -t 0 -f -c "asfrf rules". click next and finish to complete the process. Whenever you want to shutdown your computer double click the shortcut file you created: it will force (-f) the computer to shutdown(-s) in 0 mins time (-t) and display the message "asfrf rules" heh. Good luck.

Thanks to everyone for the help. I used PER's website and tried a few things that it suggested. That seemed to do the trick so far. I will keep all suggestins in mind. Yours too asfrf!!!