Softpanorama

May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-)
Home Switchboard Unix Administration Red Hat TCP/IP Networks Neoliberalism Toxic Managers
(slightly skeptical) Educational society promoting "Back to basics" movement against IT overcomplexity and  bastardization of classic Unix

Windows 7 Hangs Up When Logging Off

News

Windows Troubleshooting

 Recommended Books Recommended Links Windows 7 Hangs Up When Logging Off Audio device is disabled in Windows 7

Windows  Slow Startup and Shutdown
Fighting Spyware Spyware removal strategy Windows Integrity Checkers Integrity Checkers Using baseline Humor Etc

Hanging on logoff is very often result of  a poor driver or resident type app that refuses to close.  Microsoft diagnostics of this situation is poor. Overcomplexity of Window makes troubleshooting of this situation difficult. The first thing to do is to perform security scan (you need to be logged as administrator): 

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

C:\Users\Administrator>sfc /scannow

Beginning system scan.  This process will take some time.

Beginning verification phase of system scan.
Verification 100% complete.

Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

C:\Users\Administrator>

The second key area to investigate i to determine if this this situation reproducible with all non-Microsoft services disabled. Often an outdated mouse driver can cause problems or quite opposite (in case of Logitech ;-) newer version is causing problems.

Here is a typical description of the problem Logging off hangs - logoff issue - Microsoft Community

I have upgraded my dell e1505 laptop from vista to windows 7 home premium. Everything seems to work except when i try to shut down the system, when the system reaches logging off state, it remains in that state indefinitely. At this time i have to force down shutdown by pushing the laptop on/off button. In the next bring up, the windows complains that the system did not shutdown properly.

I have turned off all start-up program (from msconfig) and problem is still there. I have created a new user with a new profile, and the same thing applies. The shutdown works only if i start up the system in safe mode, and the shut down. Otherwise, the logging off message hangs. Any idea?

And here is a typical Microsoft recommendation about how to troubleshoot the issue (see also Windows 7 Hangs Up When Logging Off):

Shinmila H replied on 

January 31, 2010

Hey San Diego 78,

Since you confirmed in your post that shutting down is successful when in safe mode, it is very likely that some third party services or application is interfering with the shut down process.

Perform clean boot to find out the source of the problem.

The steps to be performed in clean boot are given below:
1. Log on to the computer by using an account that has administrator rights.
2. Click Start, type msconfig.exe in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER to start the System Configuration Utility.
3. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type your password, or click Continue.
4. On the General tab, click Selective Startup, and then click to clear the Load startup items check box. (The Use Original Boot.ini check box is unavailable.)
5. On the Services tab, click to select the Hide all Microsoft services check box, and then click Disable all.
6. Restart your computer.

The shutdown should go successful this time as all the third party services are disabled.

If it goes successful, we definitely know for sure that one of these services is causing the problem. Follow the elimination steps provided in the article below to determine the culprit.

How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows Vista or in Windows 7
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

After you have finished troubleshooting, follow these steps to reset the computer to start as usual:

1.   Click start, type msconfig.exe in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.
 If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type your password, or click Continue.
2.       On the General tab, click the Normal Startup option, and then click OK.
3.       When you are prompted to restart the computer, click Restart.

If clean boot fails to find the root cause, then let’s move on to hardware clean boot to determine if any hardware is posing this problem.

1. Go to start and type device manager.
2. Select device manager from the Control Panel list.
3. Right Click on Sound Card, Video Adapter, and Network Adapter one by one and click disable.
4.  Reboot the computer.  If the problem is fixed then you can enable the hardware devices one by one to find the exact device that caused the problem.

After you found the device that is causing the problem, installing the device’s latest driver should fix it unless it’s a hardware issue.

For help with driver updates, see:

Update a driver for hardware that isn't working properly
 http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Update-a-driver-for-hardware-that-isnt-working-properly

Tips for fixing common driver problems
 http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/Tips-for-fixing-common-driver-problems

If nothing helps, please check your event viewer log for details on the shutdown error.

Refer this article below for help with the same.

What information appears in event logs (Event Viewer)?
 http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/What-information-appears-in-event-logs-Event-Viewer

Post back for further assistance.

Regards,

Shinmila H - Microsoft Support

You should definitely disable all those countless updaters like Adobe, True Image, you name it.  In thread Windows 7 hangs at logging off one user report that the problem  was resolved by disabling ''Intel(R) High Definition Audio HDMI'

In another thread the solution that helped was to change Microsoft service Security Account Manager to manual. That is a questionable advice and that might have unforeseen side effects.

Also if you have a printer, unplug the printer and see if the problem goes away. If so, the system is trying to disconnect from a device that it does not know how.

I also would like to suggest you run System File Checker .

Below are collection of post that have some additional info. Hope that this collection is useful

Top Visited
 Switchboard
Latest
Past week
Past month

NEWS CONTENTS

Old News ;-)

Windows 7 Hangs Up When Logging Off - Microsoft Community

Hi cm1010101,

Welcome to Microsoft Answers!

Have you recently installed or uninstalled any software or hardware?

I would suggest you to perform a Clean Boot and check if the issue still persists.

To help troubleshoot error messages and other issues, you can start Windows 7 by using a minimal set of drivers and startup programs. This kind of startup is known as a "clean boot." A clean boot helps eliminate software conflicts.

1. Log on to the computer by using an account that has administrator rights.

2. Click Start , type msconfig.exe in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER to start the System Configuration Utility.

1. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type your password, or click Continue.

3. On the General tab, click Selective Startup, and then click to clear the Load startup items check box. (The Use Original Boot.ini check box is unavailable.)

4. On the Services tab, click to select the Hide all Microsoft services check box, and then click Disable all.

Note Following this step lets Microsoft services continue to run. These services include Networking, Plug and Play, Event Logging, Error Reporting, and other services. If you disable these services, you may permanently delete all restore points. Do not do this if you want to use the System Restore utility together with existing restore points.

5. Click OK, and then click Restart.

For further information, visit the below mentioned link:

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=929135

Steps for Normal startup:

1. Click Start, and then click Run.

2. Type msconfig, and then click OK.

The System Configuration Utility dialog box is displayed.

3. Click the General tab, click Normal Startup - load all device drivers and services, and then click OK.

4. When you are prompted, click Restart to restart the computer.

Hope this information helped!

Thanks and regards

Fouzan – Microsoft support

Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en- US/answersfeedback/threads/ and let

us know what you think.

Dano` replied on


Daniel

show details 3:21 PM (43 minutes ago)

Your below instructions worked great! It fixed my new Toshiba L655 laptop from drive thrashing and lockup! I took the liberty of re-writing your intstructions for anyone else who could use the help. It seems that I installed Skype and Facebook and something for my machine to malfunction! All the best to you!

Thanks!

dano

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If a service or device corrupts the OS making network access or virus/maleware updates protection invalid OR the disk drive light(s) are hard on, (thrashing) try this to fix services problem. (Apple Bonjour, SAIICap- unknown startup tab item, any "unknown" startup tab item)

1. BOOT IN SAFE MODE

2. RUN MSCONFIG

3. SYSTEM CONFIG UTILITY

4. GENERAL TAB

5. CHOOSE "SELECTIVE STARTUP", CLEAR CHOOSE "LOAD STARTUP ITEMS"

6. ON SERVICES TAB SELECT "HIDE ALL MS SERVICES"

7. CHOOSE "DISABLE ALL"

8. CHOOSE "OK" THAN RESTART.

This will allow the computer to startup normally without extra startup services. If necessary add back non-MS services one at a time.

Gerry C J Cornell replied on

Community Star

Seeking help by replying to a thread which is old and where the original question has been marked as Answered was not a smart move. Most experienced contributors do not read Answered threads. I suspect Gaurav Prakash has not posted for months and may no longer be a Support Engineer so alerting him most likely will not get you an answer.

Your problem.

When you intend to log off select Ctrl+Shift+Esc, select the Applications tab, note what tasks are running and then close Task Manager. Next try to Shut Down. If it hangs go back into Task Manager and use End Task on one of the running Applications and try to Shutdown again. Repeat until you identify which programme is not co-operating. When you know which it is post again.

.
Hope this information is helpful.
Gerry
Stourport, England

Windows 7 Hangs at Logging Off - Spiceworks

afeitguy Jan 11, 2012 at 6:19 AM
I was having an issue with logons that ultimately related to group policy/offline files/folder redirection/etc.. What narrowed it down for me was this:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316243

I don't know why this isn't enabled by default. There's a huge difference in troubleshooting between sitting at "welcome" and "applying folder redirection policies" for 10 minutes.

It may also help you narrow down where it's hanging up in the logoff process.

Uneducated Users - 2008 R2 and Windows 7 hangs at logoff screen- WFShellWindow needs to close

2008 R2 and Windows 7 hangs at logoff screen- WFShellWindow needs to close

Published on October 22, 2010 by Thor Egil Kolltveit in Microsoft, Server 2008

When using Windows 7 or 2008 R2 with or without Xenapp / Xendesktop you might have seen this behavior before.
What happens is when a user is logging off, the process "WFShellWindow" does not close soon enough and the user will see a message stating that "this program needs to close"

If could also be alot more programs there like outlook and in 9 of 10 cases the end user will hit the "force log off" insted of just waiting until it closes like it is supposed to do.

It would be much better if this would happen in the background and the users would not see anything…

A workaround for this to make it happen like you would like it to be, is to create a logoff script that uses the TSDiscon command.
You can either create a CMD or batch file that the LOGOFF part in the GPO launches or simply type in the entire path with the right prefixes.

Open the Group Policy Editor and navigate to User Configuration -> Policies -> Windows Settings -> Scripts - and add a new "logoff" scripts.

Script name: %windir%\system32\tsdiscon.exe
Script Parameters: %sessionname%

Note: Not all programs will automatic close when chosing logoff and you should use Group Policy to force logoff disconnected sessions after a while.

Windows 7 will not log off. - Microsoft Community

Answer

Gokul T replied on

Support Engineer

Hey Fred Gotthardt,

Thanks for posting in Microsoft answers!

a. Since when have you had this issue?
b. Any changes made to the computer recently?

Follow the below methods and check if your issue gets fixed.

Method 1:

Boot into safe mode and check if the issue exists.

To boot into safe mode, follow the below steps:

1. Remove all floppy disks, CDs, and DVDs from your computer, and then restart your computer.
Click the Start button, click the arrow next to the Lock button, and then click Restart.

2. Do one of the following:

• If your computer has a single operating system installed, press and hold the F8 key as your computer restarts. You need to press F8 before the Windows logo appears. If the Windows logo appears, you will need to try again by waiting until the Windows logon prompt appears, and then shutting down and restarting your computer.

• If your computer has more than one operating system, use the arrow keys to highlight the operating system you want to start in safe mode, and then press F8.

3. On the Advanced Boot Options screen, use the arrow keys to highlight the safe mode option you want, and then press ENTER. For more information about options, see Advanced startup options (including safe mode).

4. Log on to your computer with a user account that has administrator rights.

When your computer is in safe mode, you'll see the words Safe Mode in the corners of the display. To exit safe mode, restart your computer and let Windows start normally.

Refer the below links for more details:

Start your computer in safe mode
 http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Start-your-computer-in-safe-mode

What is safe mode?
 http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/What-is-safe-mode

If the issue does not occur in safe mode, it indicates that one of the services or startup items may be corrupted and maybe causing the issue.

To troubleshoot the issue, you may have to put your system in clean boot.

Check the below link for more details on clean boot:

How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows Vista or in Windows 7
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

Method 2:

Once you've logged into safe mode, you may do a System File Checker (SFC) scan on your computer. SFC tool scans system files and replaces incorrect versions of the system files by using the correct versions.

To run the System File Checker tool, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, and then type cmd in the Start Search box.
2. Right-click cmd in the Programs list, and then click Run as administrator.

If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type your password or click Continue

3. At the command prompt, the following line, and then press ENTER:

sfc /scannow

Check the below link for details:

How to use the System File Checker tool to troubleshoot missing or corrupted system files on Windows Vista or on Windows 7
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929833

Hope this helps!
Gokul – Microsoft Support

How To Troubleshoot Windows Startup, LogOff, Login and Shutdown Problems • Raymond.CC


How To Troubleshoot Windows Startup, LogOff, Login and Shutdown Problems

Updated by Raymond - 5 years ago - Windows

33


+1

Tweet
Printer Friendly and PDF

troubleshoot icon

Have you ever tried booting up Windows one day and it stuck at "Windows is starting up" screen for at least 15 minutes or longer before you could get to the user list? Or does your computer takes a lot of time before it can totally power down? Perhaps even logging off your user account is taking up a lot of time? If you've tried a lot of solutions but none worked and you are in the verge of formatting the hard drive to reinstall Windows, please see what do I have to say first.

Recently I've just learned from mEtRiX, our forum moderator, that we can enable and show Windows Verbose Security Status Message. This setting allows you to configure Windows so that you receive very useful verbose startup, shutdown, logon, and logoff status messages. This may be helpful to in troubleshooting slow startup, shutdown, logon, or logoff behaviour.

Windows Is starting up stuck and hang

To enable verbose status message in Windows, just follow the few simple steps below.

1. Go to Start > Run, type regedit and click OK.

2. Navigate to:


HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

3. Right click at an empty area on the right pane, select New > DWORD Value and type VerboseStatus.

4. Now double click on the new verbosestatus key that you just created and enter the value data as 1.

Enable Windows Verbose Status Message

5. Again, right click at an empty area on the right pane, select NEW > DWORD Value and type DisableStatusMessages. By default, the value data should be 0. Leave it as it is.

Now when you restart your computer, it will very quickly show you the DLL files that is executed during Windows is starting up screen. When you shutdown, it will tell you that it is playing logoff sound, stopping windows file protection, windows is shutting down and etc… Let's say if it hangs a long time at Playing logoff sound when you shutdown your computer, you now know for sure that this shutdown problem is caused by the wave file being used for Windows LogOff.

If Windows hangs at "Windows is starting up" and unable to get in Windows or safe mode at all, sorry to tell you that you won't be able to use reg.exe in Recovery Console to modify your registry because it is not supported and will only tel you that the command is not recognized. There is a way to edit the registry offline by using BartPE boot CD. You can also try running Check Disk to scan your hard disk for problems, SFC to check system files, and finally windows repair or reinstallation to try to fix the problem.

As you can see, there is no harm or performance loss in enabling Windows verbose status message. In my opinion, Microsoft should have enabled this feature by default! Good luck in fixing Windows startup, logoff, login and shutdown problems!


Read more: http://www.raymond.cc/blog/how-to-troubleshoot-windows-startup-logoff-login-and-shutdown-problems/#ixzz2bNiWegjj

Etc

Society

Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers :   Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism  : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy

Quotes

War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotes :  Somerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose Bierce :  Bernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

Bulletin:

Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

History:

Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOS :  Programming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC development :  Scripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

Classic books:

The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-Month :  How to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

Most popular humor pages:

Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D

Copyright © 1996-2021 by Softpanorama Society. www.softpanorama.org was initially created as a service to the (now defunct) UN Sustainable Development Networking Programme (SDNP) without any remuneration. This document is an industrial compilation designed and created exclusively for educational use and is distributed under the Softpanorama Content License. Original materials copyright belong to respective owners. Quotes are made for educational purposes only in compliance with the fair use doctrine.

FAIR USE NOTICE This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to advance understanding of computer science, IT technology, economic, scientific, and social issues. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided by section 107 of the US Copyright Law according to which such material can be distributed without profit exclusively for research and educational purposes.

This is a Spartan WHYFF (We Help You For Free) site written by people for whom English is not a native language. Grammar and spelling errors should be expected. The site contain some broken links as it develops like a living tree...

 You can use PayPal to to buy a cup of coffee for authors of this site

Disclaimer:

The statements, views and opinions presented on this web page are those of the author (or referenced source) and are not endorsed by, nor do they necessarily reflect, the opinions of the Softpanorama society. We do not warrant the correctness of the information provided or its fitness for any purpose. The site uses AdSense so you need to be aware of Google privacy policy. You you do not want to be tracked by Google please disable Javascript for this site. This site is perfectly usable without Javascript.

Last modified: March, 12, 2019