It's now ok to shut down windows

[TrippinJedi]

Ok on my kids machine, which has windows XP , i have it set up for two users, me the administrator and one for them. when you shut it down it stops at a black screen with the windows logo and the text that says its now safe to shut the computer down, well my other XP systems dont do that they just turn the computer off, how do i correct it so that it shuts the system off, is it because there are two system users on the computer? is it something that i can switch under the administrator user?

[tacoeater]

is the kid's computer an older computer than yours?
there was an older type power supply/switch on older computers which was called AT. This computer with this older type of power supply did not turn off until you turned off the switch.
Now we have the ATX power supply and switch. The newer one normally turns the computer off.
The older style uses an on off switch and the operating system tells you when it is ok to turn off the computer.

[yellohut]

It's most likely an AT style power supply, that's all I can think of.
do you know what brand/model the PSU is?

[TrippinJedi]

the parts were all part of a build i did before using WinXP and i didnt have any issues before, the only part different is the HD

[TrippinJedi]

the origninal build for those parts in the machine was at the most 2 years ago could be less

[juppy]

Check in the Control Panel under Power Management and see if the APM feature is checked. If not, check it. If that's not it, you may not have the ACPI features installed. These are set up when you install WinXP and you'll have to do a repair with the WinXP CD to enable ACPI. Here's a link that might help explain the process. CLICK HERE.

[Mesaeus]

I bet if you open Device Manager, and look under "Computer" you will see "Standard PC". This should be "ACPI" or something similar if you want to be able to do a software shutdown. If it's "Standard PC", Windows probably had trouble detecting the presence of ACPI (this can happen with some configurations/bios versions). Now the problem is, changing from Standard PC to ACPI requires you to reinstall Windows XP. Luckily there's another, simpler method. For this, start the Device Manager again, and this time click on the View menu and then on "Show Hidden Devices". You should then see a disabled device called "NT APM/legacy" or something similar. Enable this and the PC will now correctly shutdown. This method works for any pc where ACPI is disabled or not present.

[TrippinJedi]

Originally Posted by juppy Check in the Control Panel under Power Management and see if the APM feature is checked. If not, check it. If that's not it, you may not have the ACPI features installed. These are set up when you install WinXP and you'll have to do a repair with the WinXP CD to enable ACPI. Here's a link that might help explain the process. CLICK HERE.

thanks juppy your method was the first i tried and it worked

[juppy]

Glad you got it fixed. I know what a pain that shutoff can be. When I built my brother's computer I forgot to install the ACPI features, so I got the "Okay to shut down" screen too, and I had to hold the button in for like 4 seconds to get it to shut off.