Windows hangs on reboot or shutdown

If your PC hangs on shutdowns and restarts, you likely have a background application that is causing this to happen, or hardware that's connected and causing issues. 

Start by removing USB devices that are externally-connected -- especially hard drives and thumb drives -- and see if matters change. 

If they do, then you have a problem hardware device. Reconnect one-by-one to work out which is problematic. 

If disconnecting hardware doesn't change matters, move on by disabling all applications that auto-start with with Windows. 

Right click Start, click Task Manager, then navigate to Startup Apps.

Right click each app and set its status to Disabled.

Then go through this article's steps:

Now shut down, and see if the behavior is the same. If it is, it may be because the changes you just made aren't yet in place. 

Hard power-off the PC by holding the power button down for ten seconds, then power-on again. 

Once Windows boots, shut down and see if Windows hangs. 

If it does, then you still have an application or application-related service that's running in the background and causing issues. 

Click Start, type: System Configuration. 

The System Configuration window will open: 

Tick the radio box next to Normal Startup. Hit Apply. You'll be prompted to reboot, allow the PC to do so. 

If the PC hangs on the reboot and will not do so, hard shut-off as instructed above, then power-on again, and see if matters change. 

If they still don't, then there is still software in the background causing issues, and you may need to use an application such as Autoruns to dig deeper into what is automatically running in the background of your PC. You may download it from Microsoft here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/autoruns

Run it and follow instructions on the above link to disable auto-starting applications and services that could cause issues. 

Beyond that, if the issues still persist, you should book a support session here: