Restart/Shutdown Problems

[conductor]

Hi All,

I don't really know where to post this question so I'll put in a couple of related forums...??

When I try to restart or shutdown my Gateway laptop computer it hangs at the shutting Down stage for about 10-15 minutes then gives me a blue screen stating that windows could not shut down properly possibly due to a driver or software malfunction. Consequently I have to do a hard shutdown every time or wait for the somewhat lengthy blue screen message to run it's course, which unfortunately doesn't stay on the screen long enough to read in it's entirety nor does it present an error code . This is a fairly recent development that I've tried troubleshooting myself but to no avail. This never happened prior to installing Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit OS. Any suggestions/fixes on why and how would be greatly appreciated.

TIA
conductor