Shutdown, task not finished message.

Recently, Windows 98 has displayed a couple of annoying quirks. The first pain is when trying to shutdown. After initiating the shutdown task, the PC (Dell) sits for about 30 seconds and then issues the "This task is not finished, end task, wait 20 seconds" dialogue box. Why would it do that ? As far as I can tell, all applications are ended. I answe the message several times and end up just yanking the power. I don't think it's a virus because I don't use the internet in Windows.

The other issue that came up, when I invoke certain applications, e.g. Windows Explorer, the application will take a full minute before actually running, all the time the task bar is unavailable to me.

Any ideas ?

 

I sure sounds like something's running in the background and it's not an application you started up.

The first thing I'd check for is spyware. Download, install and run Spybot and/or AdAware (I use them both.) Let them clean up any spyware they find.

Getting rid of spyware may just solve the lag time when opening other applications.

If that doesn't help, post back.