PC not shutting down properly

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I support a PC at church which has decided it wants to be on permanently. When I shutdown (windows key, power, then shut down) it says it’s shutting down, the screen goes blank for a few seconds, then the desktop appears. I can only shut it down by using shutdown /s /f in a command window (not sure if the /f is needed, but it works). Has anyone any idea if this hardware related, or software related (if the latter, I may have put this in the wrong forum)?

Somebody else has found the problem but I don’t yet know if he has used sfc or dism – I’ll try and find out.

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

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It could be something like a user permissions problem – the Windows shutdown tool would run as a user (it doesn’t need elevation) but the actual account might not have permission to stop the user profile service – perhaps a higher rank account is logged in? Are there any odd log entries in eventvwr when you try?

The only obvious thing I can think is does the machine actually restart (that is to say, do you have to enter a password as you usually would) or does it literally return to the desktop without that? (the only thing which effects that is the setting as to if Windows can use your credentials to log in after Windows updates, so it could be a stuck update so that would be something else to check.. or you could toggle the switch so Windows waits for you to log in and see if that results in an extra stop before the desktop reappears (in which case it’s restarting, as if an update tried to complete).

Alternatively, place a shortcut.. right click desktop, left on new, shortcut. Type your command as the target, name it switch off, pick an icon (the red “xp” turn off icon is still in %SystemRoot%\System32\SHELL32.dll)..

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Is the PC up-to-date with cumulative updates?
Any changes to the hardware or software recently?
Any programs left open when you try to shutdown?
Have you used Task Manager to see if anything is left running?

The “/f” option forces a shutdown without notifying open apps.

--Joe

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It’s up to date other than one which I have to give permission to install (I think 21H2, but I can confirm it tomorrow). It accepts any update that MS offers – never had a problem. @oldguy, as I said before, the screen blanks then returns straight to the desktop. It doesn’t need a password, just logs in without it, but it’s obvious that’s what it’s doing. They’ve been shutting it down by doing a restart then ‘switching it off at the wall at the right moment’. There’s nothing running when I shut down this afternoon that I could see. SW and HW changes… I’m not sure. It’s used in the Zoom sessions we have – but that’s a black box to me.

He wants to reset the OS, using the wipe disk option. I’ve told him to use Macrium Reflect to image the disk as we could mount it to restore any data we needed from it, but he (I think) cloned it. I don’t think you can mount a clone though.

It didn’t help that I’ve discovered that we haven’t been backing up to Google Drive recently!

I’ll look at the event viewer tomorrow and reliability viewer as well. There’s only the one user on it. Why would using shutdown in a command window work but not via the start button?

Questions, questions, but I’m sure the answer will come. And if I understand it, I’ll let you know!

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

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Were there any documented outstanding known update issues from this month?

Would trying to re-register the start menu for all users (option 2) help fix this problem?

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/96018-re-register-start-menu-windows-10-a.html

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I’m not tracking any patching related side effects that would trigger this.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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I had another laptop (not mine) which wouldn’t connect to a projector. I noticed 21H2 was waiting to be installed, so I did it – this fixed the problem (I have no idea what happened). I will try this on this PC to see if it fixes the problem, then some of the suggestions on here if it doesn’t.

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

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The shutdown command with the options you stated will force a shutdown and not notify open programs. A shut down via the start button tries to be an orderly process notifying open apps and letting them close before completing the shutdown.

BTW, have you disabled fast restart?

 

--Joe

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My thinking was that some updates, when you select “install and shut down” from power in the menu actually start the update, reboot, complete the update install as they log in, then shut down – and I needed to be sure the “black screen” wasn’t the reboot and the login was happening silently (as indicated) but the desktop remained as the actual update process failed, so the ultimate shut down as instructed was not fired, possibly as the /f on the shutdown closes the installer which is failing to instigate the post reboot operations required to complete its processing and remove itself from the arena..

I was going to suggest reverting pending updates (which I believe shouldn’t affect the 21H2 offering..) with the following, though it would have to be used from the recovery options.. – any thoughts?

dism.exe /image:C:\ /cleanup-image /revertpendingactions

Also found something on looking at C:\windows\winsxs\pending.xml, cleanup.xml (absent if nothing is ongoing on my Windows 10 21H2) but unsure as to if that applies now as it’s only mentioned once (more a Windows 7 thing..) – anyone care to illuminate?

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/0x8007025d-how-do-i-get-rid-of-this-error/23e4477c-92c8-48bd-9d4b-4e480709254a

 

 

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This can be resolved as the person who is having problems with the PC and Zoom has decided to replace the hard disk with an SSD and reinstall Windows. I then go in and put relevant software on it. Data will be from the old disk connected via a dock. In my view it’s a hammer to break a nut, but it does have the advantage of a now faster machine and clearing old files etc.

Thanks for all your comments.

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

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One of the obscure settings in BIOS for the dozen or more ASUS mobos’ I’ve installed in my own as well as others’ computers is to restart (power up) based on someone pressing some key (or keys) on the keyboard, or a signal over the LAN, or RTC (whatever that is).  Perhaps some update, or maybe someone ‘trying’ to adjust the BIOS settings to get faster performance made those changes.

On my current ASUS Prime B550M-K mobo, (I just now did a restart to find it), I had to hunt around in the BIOS settings to reach ‘advanced’, then the ‘APM Config’ screen.  There were separate options for power on by keyboard, PCI-E (LAN signal?) and RTC (remote <something>, I’d guess).  I have them each set to ‘disable’ on my computer.

I would suspect that most ASUS mobos in the last 10-15 years have those settings.  Non ASUS mobos likely have something comparable.  I’d expect that the LAN power up signal would be quite useful in corporate environments to allow updates to be performed remotely during non-business hours.

If Windows or other software isn’t the culprit, perhaps a quick check of BIOS settings might be in order.

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