recently my shutdown times have increased from 20secs-1min to 2-3mins, its really pissing me off and im not joking, it really does take two or three minutes.. Im wondering how to fix this, or improve these times..
Before shutting down i always exit all programs so that all thats left running is my creative sound mixer, norton and the system processes..

anyone have any ideas or tips?

(windows xp pro sp2)

did u installed any program wich start working in the background and use ur computer resources,,,, if yes then try to disable them from loading on the startup ( if u dont want to load them.. )
if u recently installed any them manager or any visual style then disable them and chk ur problem.....

No and No the only things ive installed scince it has started happening is Msn 7.5 Beta and IE7 beta

can your remeber what date you noticed it slow down, if so, try a system restore from before that time, also try a spyware scan from a scaner like "SpyBot - Search & Distory"(try the scaner first)

might also be a good idea to do a virus scan

I havnt done a virus scan in about two weeks, ive been meaning to do one. but i dont think thats it... I do spybot and ad aware scans every two or three days.

a process is probably taking longer to shut off, this might be because of a virus, or spyware, or something like that.
try looking in your event viewer for anything odd

ya that happend to me alot too but a scan helped it

This is bad, now i dont even get to the shutdown screen, windows disappears but my background still shows.

it might be IE7 beta, since it is a beta it is bound to have a few problems, and this might be one of them

Edit:

Oh joy! Msn is working again, finally!
and i removed ie7!

But i still have my shutdown problem

Another thing that should be mentioned, is that sometimes an excessive amount of fonts can make start-up shutdown times get bigger. Idky though.

I would check for spyware, adaware, viruses and such, defrag your drive, clean recycle bin, run disk cleanup, delete all restore points, check msconfig for additonal programs running, etc... etc....

I dont have an excessive amont of fonts, i probly have 10 custom fonts plus the default ones.

Checked for spyware/adware/viruses. I havnt defraged my drive or ran disk cleanup.. i did think of it but didnt do it, ill do it soon. Ive emptyed the recycle bin and allready done msconfig startup.

Thanks.