Not able to reboot, shutdown or log off on WinXP Pro SP2

[AaronZ]

I am unable to go to Shutdown, Restart or Logoff my computer. I go to Start >> Shutdown >> Select any of the 3 and it does nothing. I have even tried doing start >> run >> shutdown.exe -r (for those who don't know, that tells the computer to shutdown and reboot). All 4 of these fail. If I want to reboot, I have to hit the reset button on my case. So short of reimaging the PC, what the hell is causing my machine to act like a prick?

Error Log:
Event Type: Warning
Event Source: USER32
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1073
Date: 9/26/2006
Time: 7:31:19 AM
User: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Computer: MINE
Description:
The attempt to unknown MINE failed
Data:
0000: 00 00 00 00 ....

I ran a virus scan and there are no viri on my C drive. Any help is greatly appreciated.

TIA.
Aaron

[protias]

i've been having the same issue (although i have sp1). what im going to do soon is rebuild my machine. it needs to be done anyway.

you could try to do a repair from the xp cd and see if that fixes it, but there are no guarentees it will.

[AaronZ]

i've been having the same issue (although i have sp1). what im going to do soon is rebuild my machine. it needs to be done anyway.

you could try to do a repair from the xp cd and see if that fixes it, but there are no guarentees it will.
Thanks. I will try this.

[Duster]

what task are running when you try and shutdown. It could be something running that is stopping it from shuting down. Look at the proc being used. Start ending proceses and see if that will let you shutdown. Then figure out what it is and solve the problem.

http://www.hardfolding.com/ftag1.php/mem/436.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=38&id=436&tm=33)

[AaronZ]

Did a reimage. Fixed the issue.

[ElaborateDream]

In future you may wish to try the hardest system level reboot that's in XP from the command line: `shutdown -f -r -t 01`. Sets a one second timeout window, auto unallocs memory from applications, and reboots.