Ok so yesterday my laptop was having a problem, I would go to try and shut it down or restart it and it wouldn't. All it did was stay at the screen where is says WINDOWS is shutting down. Also starting yesterday somehow all of my things are lost on the computer, a message came up that said "do to security reasons you are not able to get on the administrator page. and brought me to what looks like I just got a new computer. Meaning all of my items I had on here are nowhere to be found. I have XP Home SP2. Any ideas?1. Hit your start button and do as you normally do to shut down or restart, and when it doesn't respond you need to hit the CTRL+ALT+DEL, then go to the Task Manager.

2. Inside the Task Manager you'll see all of your processes running. If not, click the Processes tab to get to it.

3. Once you're in the Processes area, look at the column that says CPU and look for any processes that are showing activity, (meaning that the numbers in that column will fluctuate higher and lower). Click on at least 2-4 processes that are running and "kill" them. After you've killed at least a few or more of them, go back to your start button and try to log off again. Leave the Task Manager running AND on top, just incase you don't shut down as expected.

4. If your computer still doesn't log off or restart, repeat step no# 3. This time, kill a few processes that show NO movements in them. At least 3 or so will unlock/wakeup the computer.

NOTE: There are a few processes you don't want to mess with. They won't harm your computer at all, but you'll make the procedure harder on yourself... and those processes are:

taskmgr.exe It'll close out your taskbar at the bottom of your computer and you'll have no buttons at all.
System Idle Process If you kill this one, you may as well hit your power button because it'll SIMPLY idel the computer in a dormant state, and there will be nothing left to do but to hit the power button to shut it down.
explorer.exe I've noticed that killing this process will make it respond like the System Idle Process.

Other than those 3 main processes, you'll be fine.

Those 3 processes are the main ones not to kill at all.

Ohther than those mentioned processes, just go down the list and kill processes as you go, and then try the Start button again to shut down or so. All of this will take approximately 20 seconds or so.

The point to doing this is to eliminate the need of simply HITTING the power button, which I've done countless times, and I'm certain you have too. This has been 1,000,000,000% effective for me every single time, and I don't hit my power button any more to reboot or shut down, (not unless I ever get the dreaded "blue screen"), and that's been about 2 years now.

The shut down problem is caused by many reasons, and not limited to:
installing software
visiting WEB sites
corrupt files / programs
hardware issues
and a host of other causes,

after you reboot from a stuck shut down, it's best to let it log back on and load everything up, then do a normal reboot again.

The reason is, that after having to shut down from stuck/stubborn shut DOWNS, not all processes will load when you reboot. Some of your normal programs may not load up with windows as they did before. That's the reason for the reboot after the 1st reboot. It'll clear it up real good.


Remember, take special care to NOT have to power down your computer by hitting your power button.

You'll also want to eliminate those unnecessary programs from starting up to begin with.

Click start, run, type msconfig. Click on startup. Un-check every box, except what is absolutely necessary ie. antivirus, antispyware, firewalls.

Then restart your computer.http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=1B286E6D-8912-4E18-B570-42470E2F3582&displaylang=enlet us know how you goI will try these tomorrow and let you all know how it goes. Thanks for the suggestions and help.