I've had this happen before, when it was doing a "shutdown and install
updates". Just sat there forever trying to install stuff. I rebooted
and it was fine during the second shut down.

MikeM wrote:
Often, but not always, when I try to shut down Windows XP I get a
message Widows is working with a file. I have tried waiting for over
an hour for it to finish but so far it has not eventually shut down if
I wait. In task manager the system idle process is running at 95% of
CPU capacity.

What should I look for?

Thanks
Mike