I did experience this kind of problem. Most tips and tricks site will inform you that you may be having hardware problems but it is not. I have tried so many tweaks and troubleshooters but this one really works. Read on…

One of the most common complaints among Windows 2000 and XP users is that it takes too long for a user to log off. Sometimes this is a symptom of other problems; the user profile does not unload or a user’s roaming profile does not reconcile. The most extreme version of this problem is when the user attempts to log off and an error is logged indicating that the registry has reached its maximum size, or it seems that shutting down your PC may take forever.

The most common reason for this happening is system services or programs that run in the background which don’t terminate correctly or relinquish their handles on the registry. On a system with many services running — some of which are highly interdependent — debugging a problem like this can be difficult.

Microsoft has created a tool, UPHCLEAN (User Profile Hive Cleanup Service), that allows the system to monitor applications that access the user registry hives, and determine if an application has left keys open at logoff. If this happens, UPHCLEAN will log the application name and the keys in question, release the keys in question and complete the logoff process. This will not only allow users to log off cleanly, but also allow the problem application to be flagged.

This very small tool has speed up my shutdown without affecting the system services or programs.

Hope this might help you too.Enjoy tweaking your PC guys!!!