Occasionally the computer will stall on shut down. Sometimes it will take a few seconds and shutdown and other times it will stop at the blue Windows 98 logo screen and not go any further. The only way to successfully shutdown the machine is to press the reset button and go through the shutdown process again. The computer is a Celeron 1.8 GHz with 256 RAM running Windows 98 SE.

The first step in diagnosing this problem is to install the Windows 98 SE Shutdown Supplement. When Windows 98 SE was released, a lot of people experienced problems with Windows hanging during the shutdown procedure. It is possible you are experiencing the same problem. Download and install the patch from www.microsoft.com/windows98/downloads/contents/WURecommended/S_WUFeatured/Win98SE/Default.asp. If you continue to have problems, an article you may find useful is available at support.microsoft.com/kb/238096 which explains some of the other common causes and associated solutions, for shutdown problems in Windows 98 SE. Quite a few of these procedures involve changing important Windows settings, so before trying any of the procedures, make sure you know how to reverse the changes in case something goes wrong.