“Task Host id stopping background tasks (Microsoft \ Windows \ Plug and Play \ Device Install Reboot required)”

We received a call from a customer complaining that their laptop wouldn’t reboot/shut down properly. He got the message.

“Task Host id stopping background tasks (Microsoft \ Windows \ Plug and Play \ Device Install Reboot required)”

He also experienced the trackpad/mouse behaving intermittently. He would left click something and it wouldn’t open.

Rather than use a blanket repair such as running the System Restore repair, for this particular problem,  I did a quick google and found a link to this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILni3TO6ITc

The first comment provided the answer and fixed his problem

Go to path [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WpnUserService].

4-Double click on Start from the right side.

5-Change the value data to 4 then OK.  

The issue is to do with the Windows Push Notification service (wpnservice). There seems to be a bug in a Windows update. This bug doesn’t affect all computers. In fact this is the first time I have seen this. Hopefully Microsoft will fix the problem in the next update. Setting the value to 4 disables the service which fixed his problem.