[Dante of the Inferno]

After you've force shut down your computer, boot into Safe Mode With Networking (spam F8 at boot). Then, once Windows has loaded, click Start, type msconfig, and open msconfig.exe. Under the Services tab, check the Hide Microsoft Services box, and click Disable All. Then, under the Startup tab, click Disable All. Click Apply, and restart your computer. Once Windows has fully loaded once again, try shutting down properly.


If that worked, then the issue is one of your program's services messing up. Otherwise, it may be an issue with Windows. If that is the case, then perform an SFC scan:

1. Click the Start button.

2. From the Start Menu, Click All programs followed by Accessories.

3. In the Accessories menu, Right Click on the Command Prompt option.

4. From the drop down menu that appears, Click on the 'Run as administrator' option.

5. If you have the User Account Control (UAC) enabled, you will be asked for authorization prior to the command prompt opening. You may simply need to press the Continue button if you are the administrator or insert the administrator password etc.

6. In the Command Prompt window, type: sfc /scannow and then press Enter.

7. A message will appear stating that 'The system scan will begin'.

8. Be patient because the scan may take some time

9. If any files require replacing SFC will replace them. You may be asked to insert your win7 DVD for this process to continue

10. If everything is okay you should, after the scan, see the following message "Windows resource protection did not find any integrity violations"

11. After the scan has completed, close the command prompt window, restart the computer and check.