As with all the "Windows XP Hangs on Shutdown" I have the same problem but none of the sulution I found helps.
I am working on a Acre notebook with XP PRo SP2. The trouble started when we installed SP3.

I have tested from safe mode and that works!
I have installed The hotfix from the article in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/884882/en-us.
I have installed Hive Cleanup.
The Pc is Virus free.

Just before I reload is there anything that I'm missing?

Have you tried uninstalling sp3 and keep with sp2 for now?

Yes we did. the only sulution for this i think is to reload! the other thing I'm wondering this notebook was a Vista, and i'm not sure if the Bios was downgraded when they loaded XP.

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