Vista - Firefox 3.5 wont shut down

I'm very new to Vista. I got a compaq laptop two days ago. Its running Windows Vista 64 bit home premium. When I use Firefox it runs fine for about half an hour. Then, it will not load the next page or go back, although you will see the activity bar trying. I've figured out that even after you close the application it doesn't really close. So ,I tried to close the app from the task manager. Now it still says that Firefox is already running. I went into the processes and tried to stop it, it wouldn't respond. The only thing I can do is restart. But wait. Bonus. I can't restart properly. I have to hold the power button down and then when I start back up it says Windows wasnt shut down properly. If you try to select restart or shut down it won't respond because of course theres an app running that wont close. Help please ,anyone?????

If it came with Norton or some other av program preinstalled, download the removal tool and remove it. Your system won't run right until you get that crap off it.

Removal tool? I erased Norton using the control panel.

Tried Mozilla Minefeild browser. Same thing.

If uninstall took everything off, there wouldn't be a removal tool. Download the removal tool from the Norton site and run it until it tells you there's no Norton on the system.

It's a sad day when you have to download additional software just to remove software, thus the reason my blood boils with every baseline I do that contains Norton. That being said, I've experienced issues with Firefox as well on x64. Process absolutely refused to end, end process tree silently does nothing. Also experienced the same problem with forcing the computer to shut down. Between that and some other issues I was having I ended up doing a clean install, which is not the answer you want I imagine. Have you tried uninstalling firefox and reinstalling? Perhaps a temp or config file is corrupted and is causing it to hang. I noticed VLC would cause the same thing as well, curious if you have VLC installed and if that also experiences the same symptoms. Neither program would cause the issue everytime they were run/closed, however it was a guaranteed thing that if the computer went to sleep that internet/video was not going to function unless I rebooted.

I'll try to just reinstall firefox now. No VLC btw. I just can't believe the task manager not being able to close processes. So much for the days of ctrl+alt+del

I hear your frustration, the same firefox issue was the first time I had ever had the task manager blatently go "nuh uh" and not throw the windows shell into a violent tornado of destruction (alright I'm stretching the truth a bit). If it does the same thing, try installing Firefox 3.0 and seeing if that suffers the same problem. I'm not trying to limit the cause to 3.5, I just simply never noticed if mine went nuts with Firefox 3.0 or after I upgraded to 3.5

Downloaded removal tool for Norton ( thanks MILESAHEAD) , and reinstalled Firefox ( thanks TRUTHKID) . It seems stable ,at least for now. I'll post back if it crashes again.

Great! Hopefully things stay running smooth! Welcome to the forums too btw