Clear "windows did not shut down successfully" ?

Howdy -

"Window 7 Ultimate" on a nearly-stock eMachines.

Every time I boot I get a "windows did not shut down successfully" message, along with the "Safe Mode" menu.

However, when I shut down it seems to shut down completely normally - NO hangs or error messages, NO unexpected shutdowns: everything seems correct except the message itself. Reboot time is fast (about 45-50 seconds); but I always get the message and the menu on bootup. I'd been playing with boot-time defragmenters, but other than that have no idea what's going on. I have the feeling that some flag is getting set - in the registry or a file somewhere - and never gets reset to indicate a normal shutdown. I've looked at some error logs but perhaps I'm not looking at the right one(s). Hours of googling haven't helped....

Questions:
On booting, how does Win7 determine that the last shutdown was not "successful"? And how can I clear this?

TIA!

PS: I've done the chkdsk/chkntfs/safe boot/etc until blue in the face; my backup had the same prob and I'm trying to avoid a reinstall...

Let's have a look at these reports even though you're not reporting BSOD's: https://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-d...tructions.html