A system wart hasn't plagued me in a long time so I guess I was due. There I was, the end of a long day and all I wanted to do was shut down my PC so I could get the heck out of Dodge. Click Start, Shut Down, select the Shut Down option button, click OK and I'm out of here, right? Wrong. I wait for the system's power management support to work with Windows 98 and switch off the power. But the system doesn't shut down. It restarts.
Hmmm, maybe I checked the wrong option button in the Shut Down Windows dialog. That dialog remembers the last option button you checked and it's likely that I restarted the system at least once, it is after all Windows. So I very carefully repeat the shutdown process and make sure I check the Shut Down option button and not the Restart button. Once again the system fails to shut down; it restarts.
Don't you just hate it when your computer begins exhibiting bizarre behavior when it had been working fine? I hadn't installed any new hardware or software either for that matter. Why is it that Windows never suddenly starts working *better* all by itself? Or why all of a sudden can't something that was not working at all start working? I guess it's just the law of Windows, er, I mean entropy that everything moves towards an unordered state.
Now I'm stuck. I could hit the manual switch on the back of the power supply to force a shut down but that means I have to endure the chiding of the system that Windows did not normally shut down and then it'll run it's Scandisk process and generally be annoying when I fire the computer up in the morning.
A quick look at my TechNet disk brought the usual solutions, like "Disable fast shutdown" in Windows advanced configurations settings. There are 26 Microsoft Knowledge Base articles that recommend you disable this option to fix problems ranging from the system hanging when shutting down to the restart problem I was having. If you're having system shutdown problems you should seriously consider disabling this option. (Start, Run, msconfig, OK, General, Advanced, and check the "Disable fast shutdown" check box.)
Note that once you install the Windows 98 Second Edition Shutdown Supplement described below, the "Disable fast shutdown" check box is no longer listed on Msconfig's Advanced tab (the dialog is entitled "Advanced Troubleshooting Settings").
I pulled the plug on fast shutdown but that did nothing to fix my
problem and every time I tried to shut down the computer it
restarted. Never give up, never surrender, so I kept sifting the
Knowledge Base until I came across this little gem, "Windows 98
Second Edition Shutdown Supplement" PSS ID Number: Q239887. This
led me to a utility I'd never heard of before called 4756US8.EXE.
This patch is available on the MS Web site:
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/311/tr.cgi?warts1
Reading the documentation provided by Microsoft gave me nary a clue as to what the problem that suddenly reared its ugly head on system was, or what caused it. They toss phrases like, "shutdown failures on some Windows installations" or "shutdown issues on computers with specific hardware and software configurations running Windows 98 Second Edition." The ominous part was that the article hinted that this was a solution of last resort and that you should try all the other recommended solutions before going with this one.
I installed the patch and now my system once again happily turns
itself off when I shut down Windows. I really hate system warts.
As a footnote to this issue, I noticed just after I solved my
dilemma that a thread on this very problem was raging on our
Annoyance Board. I could have saved myself some time if I had
checked there first. If you haven't visited the Annoyance Board
please do stop by:
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/311/tr.cgi?aboard
