Shutdown Issue

My computer just started having a "Shutdown" issue.......The computer is a few years old, running Windows 2000-Pro.

Sometimes when I shut down the computer, it stops at a "Windows 2000 Professional" logo and just sits there forever. At that point, the only way to shut it down is to momentarily hold in the power button and then immediately; a message pops up that says: "Please wait while windows saves your settings" and then the shutdown process continues flawlessly. It seems to do it if the computer had been up and running for a few days. If I shut it down, boot it up and then immediately shut it down again; it’ll shut down on its own like it should!

Not even sure where to start looking? I've done all the standard maintenance like defrag, scandisk, remove .tmp files.
Any ideas?
Phil

 

you could look here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315409&sd=tech
or here:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/reskit/prork/pref_tts_eznd.mspx?mfr=true

Since it's a couple years old I would suggest do a complete format and reinstall, just to get it cleaned up, Install all the drivers then the service packs.
it is probably some program thats loaded and not wanting to close. If it doesn't then windows will just hang.