Jeff, I have been using slawdog SmartSD all week now and I have returned here to make a liar of myself as it seems to be working for me now.........I feel the earlier failure may be down to user error.
I think now that it may very well be worth you giving it a try.
The down load file is only 349 kbs, and the installed program only 596kbs.
It ingratiates itself into your start-up processes but has no adverse effect on start up speed..........and it shows in Taskmanager as a process taking only about 4.68Mbs of RAM.
It puts an icon on the Desktop marked "shut down computer" ( that icon is very similar to the My Computer one, so they are best kept well apart ) and it was this icon that caused my doubts about the program as the effect of double clicking it to shut down was the same as clicking on the normal Windows shut-down button....ie get to "Windows is shutting down" and then nothing happening.
But....but....it also puts a little icon in the systray next to the clock and right clicking on that produces a menu in which you can make various configurations to suit and in which are the options to shut down, restart, hibernate etc etc. When you then click on, say, "shutdown" a wee dialogue opens asking for your confirmation of that command.
I have been using that to both shutdown and to restart................and on every one of these commands that I have given it this week it has done as requested.
My machine is shutting down and/or restarting correctly.........and I have been doing these things more often that normal just to test.
I've changed my opinion about this program and now think that it would be well worth you trying it................if it doesn't work for you it is easy to kill the process in taskmanager and then uninstall.
Give it a go and let us know how you get on.