My Laptop with windows XP freezes on shut down and if you try to
hibernate it comes back with an error that the driver for COM 1 is not
allowing the system to hibernate.  I have checked the drivers and
found that according to the system they are not in need of updating. 
If I disable the COM 1 port I get the same error only for a different
port.
HELP

Please see:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=285291

and you might want to cancel this question if it is not needed.

Thanks.
endo

I know an error that shutting down Windows XP takes a long time but
doesn't crash. Solving this was installing XP-Antispy (for example
http://www.webattack.com/get/xpantispy.html).

If the error gets on another port if you disable com1, just disable
the next and so on if it works. If you need them or it simply doesn't
work try installing or updating chipset/mainboard drivers. The last
solution is reinstalling Windows (by the way: Windows 2000 is better
and faster but doesn't contain that play-with-me-stuff from Windows
XP)