My MBPro won't shut down

My MB Pro must be a real work-a-holic since it won't shut down.

I tried a forum search but nothing came up.

I am unable to Shutdown or Restart my laptop. It merely just sits there and taunts me after I have chosen to do either. I am able to put it to sleep via the small Apple logo in the top left.

I wasn't doing anything unusual with the machine prior. Just Safari, Skype, iTunes, iPhoto.

I am running 10.6.1 and everything is up to date except iTunes as far as I remember. I shut it down this afternoon with no problems and no other issues have appeared.

I don't want to use the power button if I don't have to, as I am a total newbie and don't know all the "do's and dont's"

So...any advice as to what to do?

I'm not 100% sure what the problem is, but the same thing's happened to me a few times. Holding the power button is fairly standard procedure if it refuses to shut down, and it won't do any harm to your system. There is one little thing that can come of it, but it's not to be worried about in the least. If you're really concerned, download Onyx, run the S.M.A.R.T. status check, and do what it says (boot from the install CD and repair something, I don't remember exactly what).

In short, it's a normal problem, and holding the power button down will shut you down with no harm done. It should shut down normally after that, it seems to be just a minor glitch.

Hope this helps...

Try Command + Control + Eject to restart.

Or, Command + Control + Option + Eject to shutdown.

If u are on Snow Leopard then u need this -try installing it and report back

I had similar problem once. My computer wasn't shutting down. I did relaunch on "Finder" through Force Quit and it worked. I don't know why. but you might want to give it a try

I downloaded the update for SL, but of course I could not reboot the computer to complete the installation.

I pressed and held down the power button and the system shut down.

I then rebooted and was able to shutdown the system using the normal procedure. This completed the installation of the SL update.

All seems to work fine now. Thanks.