Laptop taking too long to shut down

Hi Guys, My Packard Bell Laptop is taking way too long to shut down. Im talking 10 to 15 minutes. I get so annoyed waiting for it that I have resulted to just holding the power key down and shutting it off all together. Then the next day having to hit the enter key on start windows normally. I know this is not good for my laptop. Anyway what recommendations do you have to speed up the shut down operation. Here are some details on my laptop.
Packard Bell Easynote.
Windows Vista Home Premium.
Intel Core 2 Duo.
Memory 1GB.
32 Bit Operating System.
Thanks guys