windows protection message

when I shut down my computer, the screen goes to black and freezes. I restart and shut down again and then the screen goes to black and says : windows protection error, restart your computer. Press any key to continue. I hit a key and it shuts off. What can I do to stop this?

 

here's a MS knowledgebase link, talks about a variety of situations where this can occur, and some troubleshooting

try the safe mode approach to see if that pinpoints the problem - most common is a VxD (virtual device driver) that's gone bad or is from 3rd party software