It solved the problem for about a week. Now, the problem is back. Ichecked
the registry and it's still set at 1.
Please tell us what XP version and Service Pack you are using. There
are several shutdown issues addressed in SP3 and you can read about
them here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946480
If you are not sure what you have, do this we'll all be sure:
Click Start, Run and in the box enter:
msinfo32
Click OK, and when the System Summary info appears, click Edit, Select
All, Copy and then paste
the information back here.
There will be some personal information (like System Name and User
Name), and whatever appears to
be private information to you, just delete it from the pasted
information.
This will minimize back and forth Q&A and eliminate guesswork.
You may also want to browse this article and see if any of this sounds
familiar to your situation:
http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/shtdwnxp.php
I thought AutoEndTasks was used to remove the user intervention
requirement during shutdown (end now or wait) for applications that
are not responding to shutdown requests - which is not your symptom.
If some application is not responding to a shutdown command, forcing
it to shutdown may not be a good idea (figuring out what is wrong and
fixing it is better), but it's your stuff.