Thread: Shutting Down Computer

before shutting down, hit "cntrl+alt+delete" to open task manager and see what programs are running .....sounds a bit wierd to me

tried that , can't find anything

Try running ad-aware or spybot to see if you have any spyware or unwanted nasties on you machine, I 've had similar things happen ad-aware usually removes them.

Try Security Task Manager, might just help you out.
It has a free trial period. Uninstallation completely removes the program from your computer. Doesn't change any files on your computer or add anything to the Windows directory.

http://www.neuber.com/taskmanager/index.html

Originally Posted by echnidna

When shutting down my computer I often get a message box saying windows is closing a program.

The program name is "6? squares in a row plus w(k"

any idea what this is?

Should I be concerned about it?

G'day, try running the error checking tool in windows. If you have xp i think ya have to open "my computer" then right click "local disk" (where ur system info is), then "properties" then click on the button "Tools" then click "check now". Error checking will run the next time you start ur computer. And do all the maintenance like defrag etc regularly.

I had a simular thing happen to me last week and it kept doing it frequently when shutting down and my 'puter was runnin real slow too which didn't help things. I did try all the usual stuff like running the system tools, error checking (which found some files corrupted and it fixed them), etc, spybot S&E, reg mechanic and the like and even system restore.

After doing much homework online about these problems on this 'puter, around 90% of folk that replied to my questions on this matter suggested I install CCleaner, Hijack this, run them and install a new AV as i had AVG 7.5 running. All this i decided to do although with Hijackthis, I posted the info it collected online as I didn't have a clue what was what and it is suggested to post the info so people in the know can tell ya wat to delete without harming ur system\registry. I was slightly dubious about posting this info online however I needed some answers.
Apparently I had a few trojans and another virus of which AVG 7.5 didn't pick up and this was confirmed after installing Avast4 AV and also when Ccleaner tried to delete them suprisingly enough. Avast4 did find some false positives but i reckon this is a good thing as it shows that it does work and compared to AVG 7.5, well I'll keep those comments to meself.
The 'puter did crash after running these newly installed and run products and I thought the worst. I ran system restore then realised afterwards everything I just cleaned off the drive was back again Relentlessly I ran the programs again and the 'puter didn't crash. Their were many files and old programs that were dated back to 2000 and now the disk is 72% free compared to 31% before.Then i turned system restore off and ran them again and all seems great at this stage. System restore is monitoring again now and the speed of the system is very good even at shutdown with no probs being reported.

Some of these free programs like Ccleaner, Hijackthis, Zonealarm & Avast AV etc may be limited in their use but i feel why pay cold, hard to get cash for something that doesn't work as good as the free versions.
Yes i understand when some free programs either don't work like they're supposed to or have "other" software written into them like spy\adware but this is the risk one takes and it pays to investigate what others think about the free program before installing and\or using it. Just Google or Yahoo it.

Anyway hope something here helps.
Later,
Mark.

Quick fix, don't turn it off.

running housecall at the moment so we'll see if it finds anything

Bob,

You won't get those pesky messages if you turn it off at the wall.

woodbe.

I reckon 99% of the free trail fix it software is utter crap... most of the files they supposedly find are not on your computer... here pay this fee and we'll remove that for you!
Run one then try and find the files(including the registry), you'll find a few but no where near the amount they say is on your computer.
Im sure they work just fine when you pay for the license.

well housecall didn't find anything

Originally Posted by Cliff Rogers

Quick fix, don't turn it off.

Thats what i have always been told. I just turn the monitor and adsl switch off when im finished

I assume that the name looks like "□□□□□□w(k", with Win representing "unprintable chars" as squares?

If there's no similarly titled application or process in Task Mgr (the Ctrl-Alt-Del thing... you did check the Process Tab as well, didn't you?) then the odds are good it's generated by a badly coded (or perhaps for a different version of Win) program. Which'd make it a right PITA to track down.

Most programs, when they start, have an associated "hook" which is used for intercommunication by different processes. This hook is usually in human-readable ASCII format, for fairly obvious reasons. I'd say that when one particular program starts, this hook is incorrectly created. So when it comes time to shutdown and Win does it's roll-call of processes to shut down in suitable order, no process puts up it's hand when "□□□□□□w(k" is called as the process in question is sitting there thinking "Who's he looking for? Can't be me... I'm called <whatever process name should have been created at start up>"

So... to find the offending process? Shut down the system and when the task notification pops up, hit ctrl-alt-del, go to the Processes panel and take note of which tasks are still running. Most will be standard OS stuff, what you're looking for are the non-system processes. When you find a potential target, shut it down manually and see if the shutdown proceeds as normal. You may need to reboot/shutdown several times until you find the culprit.

Even then, you'll need to do a reboot and shut down that process manually before doing a system shut-down cmd, just to double-check that you actually have the culprit and not an innocent task implicated by close association.

There is, of course, no guarantee that the above will find anything. Ain't trouble shooting fiun?

If you are running winxp or 2000, have you looked at the event logs?