Windows 7: 1 Program still needs to close: Task Host Windows

[Kirei Blossom]

Hi,

My Windows 7 Home Edition laptop shows this error every time I try to restart or shut down

1 program still needs to close: (Waiting for) Task Host Window
Task Host is executing shutdown tasks, and stopping tasks that are already running.

This message never goes away, you just have to force shutdown.

Any one know how to fix this? I tried the Hotfix from the Microsoft website, but when I run the fix, it says "The update is not applicable to this computer."

 

[Kirei Blossom]

Um.. someone suggested to use regcleaner, but then they deleted the reply. So is it okay to use the regcleaner?

 

[raybay]

A good registry cleaner should to the job.

RegCleaner was last updated in 2002, so I am not sure how well it would work on Windows 7... However, I doubt it would hut anything... It just might miss a lot of stuff.

 

[gbhall]

I would much rather find out what is running and refusing to stop when told to by the OS. It could, for example, be malware. You might look at task manager, processes, then identify everything that is shown. This usually possible by just entering the name e.g.vttimer.exe into a google search. I don't know if Win7 task manager allows you to temporarily hide Microsoft programs, but it certainly ought to - making the job easier.

Anything suspicious, come back to us immediately.

I have to say that, ironically, one of MS own products Visual Foxpro, behaves like that, and will never be changed. Technically, it is a complex database application, and enforcing a hard stop would be undesirable in the extreme. It may be that something you run also uses a database, and requires a 'proper' stop, but I am reasonably sure you would know that.

 

[greentech07]

a good registry cleaner will do it for you, reginout is a gud tool to fix ur problem

 

[Leeky]

I agree with gbhall. You need to know what program is causing this before you go running every regeditor/malware/spyware application under the sun.

Its very simple to do. Just press ctrl alt del at the same time,and then select task manager from the popup menu.

Close down all your currently running software (e.g. web browser, email client, msn etc), and then check whats remaining. Like ghall said, the easiest thing is to google the names in the running tab - That'll usually give you enough information to make a decision as to whether its friend or foe.

Do you shut down windows with everything still running?
Or do you close everything running before selecting shut down?