unchecked everything from msconfig. rebooted (had to manually shut down) started back up, checked to make sure everything still uncheckd and tried to shut down. shutdown still hung.

hid microsoft services and unchecked everything else. rebooted (had to manually shut down. started back up, checked to make sure only microsoft services were there, hid them again and tried to shut down. it still hangs. in fact it is still showing "windows is shutting down" even as we speak (I am typing on a laptop, sitting right next to the malfunctioning PC).

Next step?