Windows 7 Won’t Shutdown

Symptoms:

Windows 7 was hanging during shutdown. I would have to manually shut it down which resulted in the "Windows did not shutdown correctly" the next time I booted the computer.

Gathering information:

I looked in the system's event log and found no errors regarding this problem. I also looked at any new programs and drivers.

Hypothesis:

H1. Delete/Uninstall recently installed drivers
H2. Delete/Uninstall recently installed programs

Results:

H1. I uninstalled a few recently updates drivers, and found it made no difference.
H2. I uninstalled the last 2 programs I installed, and the problem still persisted.

I then researched the problem on the internet and found a solution. Apparently there is a problem with certain audio services causing this problem. This can be solved creating a batch file that disables those services, and start the batch file when logging off. This solved the problem.

I found these steps HERE.

1. Create a .bat file (create txt file and change extention to .bat)
2. Right Click on file > "edit" and enter following info:
   net stop "Audiosrv"
   net stop "AudioEndpointBuilder"
3. Save file as "Audio stop"(or whatever you want) to your main drive ie: C:\Audio stop
4. Open "run" from start menu and enter "gpedit.msc" (without quotes) and hit "OK"
5. Now navigate from right pain of window "User Configuration" > "Windows Settings" > "scripts (Logon/Logoff)" > "Logoff"
6. From window that opens from clicking "Logoff" Click "Add" then browse to where you saved "Audio Stop.bat" earlier and double click on it.
7. Hit "Apply" and close.
   
   Window 7 will now automatically stop the Audio services when Shutting Down or Restarting allowing system to complete the process.

If this doesn't work for you, you may need to verify the names of the audio service(s) on your system and replace "audiosrv" with applicable service name, but this solution should work for most systems.

Reflection:

I found that there may be other services that would cause this problem, such as USB drivers, Firewire devices, etc. The solution for the problem is the same, just with different services disabled when you log off of the system.