In the meantime, vendors suggest turning off power management, which turns off the Windows Me automatic shutdown feature.

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Testing conducted by CNET Labs, Beijing in November 2010 using the independent Microsoft VTS tool to measure start-up, shutdown, resume and other Windows 7 performance measurements.

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Microsoft denies that Windows Me's power management enhancements may contribute to the shutdown problem.

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Mr Wright told the BBC that he and other colleagues hid in a locked office with the windows taped when they heard from a colleague that what they thought was a routine shutdown was actually a terrorist attack.

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Meanwhile, the rest of us continue to struggle with the problems users face even in a Windows 7 world: sporadic freezing, the occasional printer that disappears from our network, the sudden shutdown of Word when in the middle of a document.

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