Vista: poweroff won't stay off or logout

First let me say I'm a Linux guy stuck trying to keep family & friend's winboxes running.

About a year ago I spent all day fighting with my Lady's not so tech smart son's Compaq Vista (basic) box (with AMD Sempron processor) back into usable condition. I couldn't convince him to use a separate admin login, and only let the teenagers at a non-admin account. So the teenagers keep going to bad websites with the admin login, and installing bad things. There wasn't money for non-free/non-trial version clean up tools. Nor did he have a clue what happened to the system restore disk that he thinks came in the box when he bought the durned thing. But I eventually got it working, more by luck than by any windows expertise. I do know I uninstalled a lot of stuff... Once it seemed to be working, I installed Microsoft security essentials and after dealing with the threats it found on a full scan, set up an auto "quick" scan schedule. Then I set up windows update to automatically update. But knowing it was going to be abused by the household teens, I took my usb hard drive & a clonezilla disk and made an image of his system while it at least appeared to be working properly.

Well Since then they messed it up really bad. He said it would randomly turn itself off, and he couldn't get online anymore etc...

Well I just restored the clonezilla drive image, fixed the CMOS date (it thought it was 2007?) updated Microsoft security essentials. Passed a quick scan. manually triggered windows update which installed 77 security updates, rebooted, and ran a full virus scan which found and removed two malware items...

Everything seems to be working correctly again. Or at least as correctly as this Linux user thinks Vista can work anyway.

That is everything except the power off function. You know, you tap the windows key and cursor right till the shutdown button is selected and hit enter. (Or maybe you just click on it.) And it's supposed to save your settings and shut down. Well it almost looks like it's shutting down without logging out for a couple of seconds. the power indicator light even goes out. Then it comes back on and the user account is still logged in.

This is NOT something it was doing when I made the clonezilla image...

If however instead of telling it to shut down, I select restart from the pop-up menu to the right of the shutdown button, it does restart properly. Goes through the bios startup where holding the power button in long enough to force a hard power off doesn't cause an unclean shut down. And where F10 does open the bios settings utility. And where the escape key does yield the boot menu. Which will happily boot one of my Puppy Linux Flash drives.

I note that neither Puppy Linux, Nor the clonezilla dvd, has any problem with the power off choices from their menus... So I don't think this is a hardware issue.

If this was my PC I'd probably just install Mageia Linux on it, and never look back. But it's his. He can't afford to buy a new PC. And there is zero chance that I can get him to try Linux instead... I'm supposed to give the PC back to him soon. I can probably get him to restart, and then turn off the power strip when it tells him it's a compaq. But I'm sure those teens won't have the patience for that. Just as I'm sure that when it wants to check the disk for errors after the unclean shutdowns they will get, They won't want to wait for that either...

So if I can't get his Vista shutdown working properly, I'm probably going to wind up restoring backup images every other month for so long as his kids shall live. {sigh}

Suggestions anyone?

 

Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10 would be my suggestion.

It boots from a CD, and will nullify malware without booting Windows. Also, their TDSSKiller program has helped me on a few occasions recently when it comes to bootkit/rootkit issues.

I'm not saying you have a bootkit on your hands, but it kind of sounds like you may have some unwanted programming in your boot sector (MBR).

 

Thanks for the tip... I'm doubtful that this is the problem, But this rescue disk sounds worth having around if I'm going to try to keep family winboxes viable.

And since it runs OUTSIDE of windows, it shouldn't have any conflict with the installed and active Microsoft Security Essentials right? So what could it hurt?
I'll have to try it...

Like I said, I have some doubts, But I suppose there could be something hiding in the boot sector that MSE doesn't see (even on a full scan) Though I thought MSE at least tried to check for that... So I will try that.

In the meantime I have a little more info: This bogus power off cycle seams to be limited to the power off button on the start menu. Because I've found that if I select the "logout" choice from the popup menu, the power off button on the login screen does still work properly. If Kaspersky doesn't find and fix the problem, I'll try creating another user account to test if it's something in his user settings.


Though I'm not sure what good that would do, I wouldn't have a clue how to clone all his other user settings into a new user account so that I could then delete the one with the broken shutdown button without ticking him off...

 

Now that might work. To bad I can't reasign the command the official button uses... But An icon on the desktop might work. Especialy if I can make it look like a shutdown button. I'm guessing that once created, right clicking would allow assigning a new icon image file. And there must be a good icon image at somewheres at http://www.iconarchive.com

So thank you much for the alternitive...

 

Update: Kapersky is right now about 43% through with as comprehensive an "Objects scan" as it let me select.

I just had to comment as a Linux user I was pleasently surprised to recognise that this live rescue disk is running in an KDE desktop environment. KDE might not be my prefered desktop. But it's a Linux tool, and as a Linux user, using it to work on a winbox just makes me feel so :cool :-D

 

The only thing about Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10 is it doesn't seem to have been updated since Aug 12. I needed a bootable AV last week and was unable to find one that has been recently updated.

 

I'm not sure when the "engine" was last updated... But When I followed the how-to I found at, http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/36403 to start with the "update center" tab, the Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10 I just downloaded appearently shipped with a database that was released on "2/5/14 9:50 PM"...

 

Since Kaspersky didn't find any threats, I might as well try that to... Thanks for the link.

 

Ummm, this is embarrassing...

I just noticed something... it's about that "poweroff" button I said was misbehaving. I just happend to pause with the mouse hovering over it long enough to notice the "tool-tip" message describing a "low power mode" rather than shutting down.:confused

So maybe there isn't actually anything wrong with it after all...:-o

In my defence, the button in that spot of the start menu on the seldom used "Vista Home Premium" in my laptop, (that is labeled with the same icon BTW) IS the power off button. As is the button in the same spot of the start menu of the Wndows 7 desktop ny Lady has in the Livingroom. (though admittedly, in that case it's labeled with a word "shutdown" rather than an icon.) AND on all three machines, the button with this same icon on the login screen does initialize a power off function.
But for some reason the button in that same spot, using that same icon, on Ray's "Vista Basic" desktop, has a different function. rolleyes

I don't suppose there is a preference setting somewhere that defines which function that button has is there??

 

:-o And this is even more embarrassing... :-o

As it happens on my multi-boot laptop (w/Vista) I long ago went with the classic start menu... I wasn't sure that swtiching back to standard wouldn't lose my classic customzations, so I ceated a tmporary accout to check my memory.
And when I checked it said someting about updates and then shutting down.

But when I went back to delete the temporary user account, I peeked again, and now that it's not trying to finish updating, the tooltip says something about a low=power mode, (Just like Ray's winbox) :confused

And some folk wonder why I dislike using windows...

 

Yeah, I'm guessing that "orb" is the name of the image on most power buttons these days...

And yes in Vista's standard startmenu, that button stits just to the right of the search box, and next to it are two more buttons, one with an image of a lock, and one with an arrow that does ion deed pop a list of shutdown options...

I note: though that on the only Win7 machine I ever got to play with, the start menu power button is marked with the word "shutdown" rather than an orb like image.

And that is exactly the thing I been looking for: I thank you very much!

Why Microsoft chose to hide that setting so deep in the bowels of advanced settings I'll never know.

 

When running the desktop, you can (and SHOULD) download the latest definitions. Probably the reason why they haven't updated the downloadable.