"Logging off..." hangs up

[1Frustrado]

In shutting down Vista Home Premium [probably after an update] it hung up in the "Logging off..." part and has been that way for hours. When it is in that mode you can do nothing. I can shut off the laptop [a Dell Inspiron 1545] but bringing it back up simply returns it to the same point. I have gone into the BIOS and tested the hardware which is fine. I have tried starting the computer in Safe Mode [hitting F8 before Windows starts to boot] but it won't go into Safe Mode. It clearly thinks it needs to shut down first but it won't. Any ideas? Thanks.

[1Frustrado]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1Frustrado

In shutting down Vista Home Premium [probably after an update] it hung up in the "Logging off..." part and has been that way for hours. When it is in that mode you can do nothing. I can shut off the laptop [a Dell Inspiron 1545] but bringing it back up simply returns it to the same point. I have gone into the BIOS and tested the hardware which is fine. I have tried starting the computer in Safe Mode [hitting F8 before Windows starts to boot] but it won't go into Safe Mode. It clearly thinks it needs to shut down first but it won't. Any ideas? Thanks.

I found the solution. When I pushed the hardware off button I failed to hold it down long enough to do a hard shutdown so it kept trying to resume Windows upon startup. Once I got it completely shutdown I could restart in Safe Mode [just in case] and got it going. The whole event was curious because it hadn't started installing the updates which it had probably downloaded.