There are a few questions regarding my current and potential computer setup on which I would like to seek your expertise. First, when shutting down Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 the computer hangs and does not progress through the shutdown motions. The only way to complete the shutdown is to use CTRL-ALT-DEL. Is there a problem with Service Pack 2? Second, I recently ran the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor , to test the compatibility of my computer with Windows Vista, and the utility reported that Asix AX88172 USB to Ethernet adapter is not compatible. Why isn’t Vista compatible with this adapter, as don’t all Ethernet cards do the same thing? Finally, when starting Windows Media Player a message appears informing that the program cannot start because the user id was not found in the Dynamic Link Library. Can you explain the meaning of this message, and how it may be resolved?

Windows XP hanging on shutdown is quite a common problem, and you have alluded to the resolution within your questions. You mention that the only way to complete the shutdown is to use CTRL-ALT-DEL. I assume that when you press CTRL-ALT-DEL you are using the Task Manager window that appears to close a particular process which is not responding. As you may now see, this process is the one causing the computer to hang on shutdown. So, we need to find a way to prevent this process from interrupting the shutdown process. As a starting point, you will need to determine the purpose of this process. Write down the name of the process, and then using Google or Process Library (www.processlibrary.com) search for the name of the process. This should hopefully yield information on the purpose of the process, and whether there are any associations with other programs running on the computer. Once you have found the purpose and definition of the process, I suggest you conduct another search using Google to check whether any other users have experienced problems with this process causing Windows to hang on shutdown. This may provide you with some useful suggestions on methods to resolve the problem.

However, if you are unable to find records of other users with similar issues, we will need to find a resolution ourselves. As a first step, once you have determined the purpose of the process, decide whether this is an essential process which you need to use. If not, you may be able to disable this process from running without any adverse consequences. Most likely, since this is a background process it will be loading on Windows startup. If you are sure this is not an essential process, and disabling the process from loading on startup will not cause any adverse consequences, then you can proceed to disable the process. To do this, go to the “Start” menu > “Run” and type “msconfig” (without the quotes) and click OK. In the System Configuration Utility window that appears, click the “Startup” tab. This lists all programs which load on Windows startup. Find the entry for the problem process, and untick the entry. Click OK and then restart the computer. This will prevent the process from loading on startup, and thus should not cause any more problems when shutting down the computer. In the event that the process does not automatically load on startup, and is not present in the System Configuration Utility list of startup processes, it is likely the process is launched when the application associated with the process is started. From your research you should have determined the purpose of the process, and thus can also determine the actual application with which the process is associated. Since the problematic process is loaded upon starting the associated application, there is little you can do to prevent this process from running (short of not using the associated application, which is probably not a viable solution). In this case, you may need to manually close the process prior to shutdown using CTRL-ALT-DEL. While this is not a particularly elegant solution, it should at least prevent the shutdown process from hanging. Another alternative would be to visit the software manufacturer’s website to check whether an updated version of the software is available which may resolve the problem. If you still encounter difficulties in resolving this issue, then please contact me again with the exact name of the process causing the problem and I will attempt to provide further advice regarding the problem.

Regarding your second question, it is not surprising that the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor detected an incompatibility between hardware installed in your computer and Windows Vista, since new operating systems often result in old hardware incompatibilities. To confirm this incompatibility, I visited the Asix website and checked the product information. According to their website (www.asix.com.tw/products.php?op=pItemdetail&PItemID=85;71;101&PLine=71) ? ?No, we don’t plan to support Vista 32-bit/64-bit drivers for the AX88172 because the AX88172 was an obsolete product?. This is fair enough, as hardware manufactures cannot viably create new drivers for old products. Therefore, you will not be able to use the Asix AX88172 through Windows Vista. If you intend to upgrade to Windows Vista you will need to investigate purchasing a new device which is compatible with Vista. That said, you are quite lucky with this being the only hardware that is incompatible, as this should be relatively inexpensive to replace, compared with other hardware which could be potentially incompatible (such as video cards and sound cards).

You raise an interesting point about why such hardware is incompatible since all Ethernet cards do the same thing. You are correct that products within certain groups perform the same functions, such as Ethernet cards providing network, sound cards providing sound, and video cards providing graphics. However, different products implement the methods to achieve these outcomes in vastly different ways. This is why there is product differentiation for hardware components, for instance some video cards provide higher performance than others. Therefore, to support the different implementations of these products each product requires their own unique drives, to tell the computer and operating system how to understand and interact with these devices. Since each device requires their own drivers, some drivers may be supported on different platforms (such as Windows XP, Windows Vista) whereas others do not support the same range of platforms. In this situation, unfortunately the drivers for your Ethernet card do not support the Windows Vista platform.

Dealing with your final question about Windows Media Player not starting due to the user id error in the Dynamic Link Library, I have never seen this error before and cannot find any references to such errors when researching your question. In order to investigate this error I will need some more information, in particular the exact error message which is appearing on the screen. If you could please send me these details then I can look into this problem further.