Shutdown errors End Program prompts

Hi
I had posted a log from Hijackthis and it was said to be clean. I thought I would post here to see if anyone had a similar problem.
I have been working on the In-laws system. They use Dialup service because thats all they have in their area. The main complaint was the system somtimes froze up when they went online. Especially after they had let the system fall to sleep and later in the day they went to log online again. It would connect but then freeze up. Only choice was to power off and start over.
I did some clean up. No spyware or virus.
I have Cable so I hooked it up and the system runs great. The problem never occured. Its only when you dial up. I uninstalled and reinstalled their dial up. It seems like it improved some. But maybe its wish full thinking. Back a few months ago they added this accelerater provided by their provider. I did unistall it to see if it was the culprit but its not.

What I do notice is when you do a restart or shutdown a series of End now boxes pop up. I see their provider I have seen ctfmon I see one for IE,nortons and yahoo. You dont have to click end now it just flashes by and continues to whatever you have chosen to do.

Other wise the computer runs just fine. I did not see a need to totally wipe it out. Its just a problem when you dial up and its only after you let the system go into to sleep mode.

My thing is why are these end now boxes poping up? How do I stop that? It could be the problem.

They are running XP
Thanks

 

Your In-laws are making a basic, and common, mistake especially when using dialup.

Do NOT remain online all the time. Disconnect when you are not using it.

They may not be aware that remaining online all the time allows more time for hackers to enter their system. You should be online only when you need to access something online. Also, you do not loose anything when offline; email, etc., is kept on their ISP's system until they download it via whatever email client your In-laws are using.

Also, being online and having "sleep" enabled is incompatible:

• If they want to use "sleep," go offline
• If they insist on being online all the time, disable "sleep"

COMMENT: I use DSL, and I disable it when I don't need to be online for safety.

 

Thanks
I'm sorry I should have specified that they are not staying online all the time. They do disconnect when they are done and instead of shutting down the computer they let it go into sleep mode in case they want to use a few hours later. After the system has been in the sleep mode is when the problem occurs. Once they dial up again the system might freeze. Its seems to be intermitent too.
The system is shut down completely every night

The End now prompts when you shut the system down or do a restart seem to always be there.

 

This is why I advise never to use "sleep."

Just use Control Panel, Power Options, and set Monitor to shut off after a time, and everything else to Never. Much more trouble-free way.