Problem solved
Thank you for your help RAK; however I already did those things multiple times to no avail.
The good news is that I believe that I solved my own problem, so I will post it to help someone in the future.
I set up my Windows 7 with the old quick launch. I also set up a shortcut for "Shutdown" and pinned it to the quick launch. Apparently the coding I used to set up the "Shutdown" button was causing the problem. I figured this out by using the "Start/Shutdown" that comes with Win7...and when I rebooted everything was fine. So, I then googled "Shutdown" and came up with a different coding for my "Shutdown" button and everything is now fine