Windows 7 shutdown problems on HP dv7

I have an HP Pavilion dv7 laptop that caused me some considerable grief. The problem was that Windows 7 just WOULD NOT shutdown or reboot; it would just hang at the "Shutting Down..." screen. As a result, I needed to turn the machine off by holding down the power button which meant that I got a "Failed to shut down properly" prompt (for 30 seconds) every time I started it up again. Not good.

There were a number of other "issues" I noticed that may or may not be related. They were:

I hunted through online forums and read all the useless "suggestions". Many just stated the obvious "fixes" such as; update your BIOS, remove the last driver/app you installed, check your system logs, blah, blah, useless-blah! Of course, I had already tried all those things before even looking online.

Anyway, I figured I would do a methodical and fresh rebuild and check to see at what point (if any) the system started to misbehave.

After installing a fresh version of Windows 7 Pro (x64), I let the system download some 60-odd Windows Updates (at time of writing). This included a number of hardware drivers. These were:

It seems the above Windows Update drivers are actually later versions than those found on the HP support site, so I didn't bother installing any from HP.

This left a number of "Other Devices" in the Windows Device Manager that needed identification and installation. A "Base System Device" was listed three times and there was one "Unknown Device". Checking the "Properties"-> "Details"-> "Hardware IDs", I determined the Base System Devices were the JMicron card reader and the Unknown Device was the ENE CIR Receiver. I downloaded and installed the appropriate drivers for these from the HP support site. This resolved ALL the driver issues as indicated in Device Manager and the system was still rebooting and shutting down correctly.

I then started to install my "essential" utilities and applications, one at a time, with a reboot in between each. This was to determine if any particular installation caused the problem.

Everything seemed to install fine and no problems occurred.

At least until I had a Windows update fail on me. The shutdown problem re-occurred when Windows Update identified and downloaded three new updates. The first one in the queue was a driver for my WD ShareSpace, which failed to install. Windows Update eventually reported the installation failure and then stopped. I tried to run Windows Update a couple more times, with the same result. Finally, I attempted to reboot and my system hung at the "Shutting down..." screen. After several attempts to rectify this, I gave up and started a fresh rebuild, AGAIN!

This time all went well. I have managed to install everything I use and haven't had Windows Update fail on me.

I wasn't sure if the WD ShareSpace update, in particular, was the problem or not, so I investigated further. My investigations confirmed that the ShareSpace driver (whatever its dubious purpose), DOES CAUSE the problem outlined above. Keep in mind that Windows doesn't detected a need to install anything to do with the WD ShareSpace unless you try to open the device under Network Storage Devices. So, if you accidentally try to access your WD ShareSpace this way, and it starts to install a drive from Windows Update, CANCEL IT, or you could break your machine!

One last thing, if you're finding the (supposed) Gigabit Ethernet connection on your ShareSpace is appallingly SLOW, there is NOTHING you can do about it. I, and many others who have reported this to WD, are lucky to get performance that reaches 5% of its supposed throughput. Simply put, this NAS is not particularly well developed, nor is it well supported.

I hope my findings help someone else deal with their problems or, better, avoid buying a WD ShareSpace.