Off / On?

[Operations]

I've had this problem before, on one of my systems at home and now at the job. There is two different OS (98 at home and XP at work). For some reason when I log off, it restarts instead of shutting down. Any help will be most appreciated...

[(jj)]

Are you just "logging off" or telling the system to "shut down"?

Those are 2 totally different functions, when you "log off" - the system should restart to allow another user to log on. If, however you tell it to "Shut Down" then it should go into the shut down sequence and then power off.

On the 98 machine, there was an issue with faster computers and the fast shutdown function being enabled, and also another issue with the hard drive write back during shutdown that caused them to reboot or hang, instead of shutting down.

But since you are having the same problem with both 98 and XP, I would presume that you are using the "Log Off" instead of actually telling the system to "Shut Down".


Just my "For What It's Worth"

[Operations]

Yes, I am attempting to shutdown the system. But it just restarts itself. Now, what I have to do is hold down the power button for a few sections when shutting down or it will restart.

[(jj)]

Hmmm, can't say that I have ever actually seen this problem before, but I was able to find one referrence to it for Win XP in the MS knowledge base

Now this is for XP only!!

http://support.microsoft.com/search/preview.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q320299

Now for the Win 98 system, you can try this trick the next time you go to shutdown and see if it works.

Go to your "Start" and then to "Run" and type (or copy and paste) this command string in

rundll32.exe shell32.dll,SHExitWindowsEx 1

The worse that can happen would be that it restarts or it may hang on you, but I use this in a batch file to shutdown my system (Win 98se) all the time.

Have you installed any new software on both of these machines lately? It could be an effect from a software install that needed to reboot the system and for some reason did not do it, and has left the "reboot" command in the registry.


Anyway, those are the only things that I could come up with, maybe someone else on here has had similar problems and knows the magic cure.


Just my "For What It's Worth"

[Operations]

Thanks, I ran the string you suggested for 98 and it did the same thing, it restarted the computer. I'm going to install xp on that 98 system and see what happens then.

[RadioRob]

Just as a couple of suggestion too... not sure how everything is working for you. These may work, these may not.

1. Make sure you have all the latest Windows Update. (http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com). This includes all of the critical updates.

2. Run a scandisk and defrag.

3. Make sure you don't have TSR (terminate and stay resident) programs that interfere with the shutdown proceedure.

4. Check to make sure your anti-virus software is not causing the problem. Just for the heck of it one time... shut it down completely and then shut down the machine. Does it still do it?

These may or may not work. But are some extra things to try.

Good luck!