PC gets stuck during "Logging off" & "Shutting down".

[NYKrumrie]

I have Acer laptop Win7 Pro x64 SP1. When I try to shut down or restart my system it gets stuck at either "logging off" stage or sometimes it gets past that but hangs up on "shutting down". I've let them run for over an hour & nothing happens. I have to hold down the Power button to turn off machine. Upon reboot the system say there was a problem during shut down do you want
to "restart normally" "safe mode" etc.. Now when I go into safe mode I can close down no problem. I have tried "boot to last known good config" doesn't help. I don't think there was a "restore point" made to go back to. Why is this happening & how can I fix it.
Thanks!

[pip22]

If safe mode doesn't have that problem it will most likely be a bad or incompatible third-party device driver that's causing it, since safe mode doesn't load any third-party drivers.

Typically the bad driver will be the one that was installed last, just before the problem was first noticed.

[JackBauer_24]

Also it could be to many processes trying to close.

Also try disabling Windows Sounds.

Pip22 is on the right track though.

Update all hardware drivers.

Audio
video
chipsets