Empire Total War Won't Fully Exit Game

[L1Mavrick]

Hello, I am experiencing a problem in Empire that when I exit the game, it doesn't fully exit.

For example, I run the game, played some skirmish battle, then press "exit" button, it brings me to the desktop, but when I open the "task manager" Empire is still running and is still eating a lot of memory power.

This is the first time I experience this, the game was alright on my old computer. I don't know what happened and I can't find a fix for it.

In addition to the problem, my graphical settings and audio settings won't save. Every time I run the game, it'll reset to it's original settings. Plus there is no preference file (I know where it is located)

Total War Napoleon works fine for me, but I don't know what happened to Empire.

(If someone already founded a fix, please relocate me to that thread. I tried to find fixes but I cannot find any, I just felt frustrated and I thought I should ask here)