We always talk about how to turn on the PC faster and forget, however, that even turning off the computer, at times, can be so long as to make us want to kick it to avoid waiting. That of a long PC shutdown is a problem especially for laptops and for people who use the computer not only at home, who perhaps would like to close and leave the office or school immediately after finishing a job and, instead, are forced to wait for the long Windows shutdown procedure.
In addition, it may also happen that the shutdown process of Windows does not complete the shutdown of the computer, because maybe some open application does not respond and the system cannot close it while waiting for manual intervention.
If then there are waiting problems in shutting down the computer, these also occur when you are forced to restart the PC to resolve an error or after installing an update.
Basically, if it is true that speeding up the startup of the PC is important, it is equally so for the shutdown.
As already explained, if Windows takes a long time to shut down, the waiting time for Windows to stop depends on the open programs, on the services running and on how some system configurations are set.
Below, we see both how to solve the problem of a too long shutdown, and how to speed up the shutdown of Windows to the maximum, on Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10 .
First of all, it can be interesting to measure the computer's shutdown time .
1) If you notice that a program is always waiting to be closed, you should uninstall it and, if anything, reinstall it from scratch
Even if this is a foregone solution, if this software or a process of it is not terminated, it means that there is a problem with the configuration of the program itself and it is not the fault of Windows.
2) Just as it can be a problem for starting the PC, even for the shutdown, if slow, the cause can be errors on the hard disk .
It is therefore recommended to look for errors on the disk with the Checkdisk tool.
3) Make sure that Windows is not configured to empty the paging file on shutdown .
Windows uses a paging file, also known as virtual memory, to be able to use part of the hard disk as if it were an additional RAM memory.
In theory, the option to automatically delete the paging file when the computer is turned off should be turned off by default, but if there is a strange wait, even several minutes, every time you shut down your PC, it's probably worth the effort. check this option.
NOTE : From this point on we will have to act on the registry keys.
the Windows registry, briefly said, is a directory where the settings and options of Windows and all hardware and software devices are stored.
Always remembering that modifying the registry can cause damage to Windows so it is always better to backup the Windows registry before doing anything, to open the registry you have to press the Windows-R keys together (or go to the Start menu -> Run) and run the regedit command and press Enter .
Registry keys are organized as if they were file folders that can be navigated from the tree menu on the left.
To check if your computer clears the paging file every time you turn off the compute, go to the following key in the Registry Editor:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Control \ Session Manager \ Memory Management
Look in the right pane for the " ClearPageFileAtShutdown " setting and if it is set to "0x00000000 (0)" then it is fine, while if it is set to " 0x00000001 (1) ", Windows is clearing the paging file on shutdown and goes changed the value from 0 to 1.
If you don't see any key called "ClearPageFileAtShutdown" then that's fine.
3) Identify the Services that cause delays in stopping
You can actually check if there is a service that is slowing down the shutdown of the computer from the Event Viewer .
Then look for the event viewer on the Windows Start menu (or press the Windows + R keys and run the eventvwr command in the Run dialog).
From the menu on the left, switch to the following view:
Application and service logs \ Microsoft \ Windows \ Diagnostics-Performance \ Operational
Right click on Operative, press on Current log filter, type " 203 " in the "Event ID" field and press OK.
203 is the shutdown event.
Now look at the list that should only show events that read " The service caused a slowdown in the system shutdown process " and you can find the name of the culprit service.
Obviously there is a problem only if a service causes the shutdown process to slow down every day and if it is not a system service.
4) Tricks to speed up your PC shutdown
If the previous ones are important points in case you have problems, the following are instead of the tricks that everyone can use to speed up the computer shutdown.
These are changes to 4 hidden Windows options, through the registry (so see note above), to decrease the waiting time for closing the programs.
- AutoEndTasks : Windows normally displays a window for the forced closure of a program after a few seconds of waiting.
If you no longer want to see this warning and you want Windows to automatically close all applications and shut down without asking for permission, you can activate this option from the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop
Look for the registry key called AutoEndTasks, right click, select Change and change the value to 1.
If this key does not exist, it can be created by pressing the right mouse button on the empty space in the center, using the option New> String value .
- WaitToKillAppTimeout : when you turn off the PC, Windows gives open applications a time of 20 seconds to clear the cache and save its data before closing.
This option controls the number of seconds to wait.
The key is found
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop
Look for the registry key called WaitToKillAppTimeout, right click on it, select Modify and change the value to 2000 or more (but not less)
- HungAppTimeout : Windows considers applications as "hung" if they do not respond within 5 seconds and offers the option to force them to close.
This value controls the number of seconds Windows waits before considering that an application is unresponsive.
Look for the key under HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop called HungAppTimeout, right click, select Modify and change the value to 1000 or more.
- WaitToKillServiceTimeout is the option that tells Windows to wait five or more seconds after clicking " Shut Down ", before closing any background services and turning off the computer.
This key is located below:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Control
Look for the registry key called WaitToKillServiceTimeout, right click on it, select Modify and change the value to 5000.
In this case it is better not to set it to a value lower than 5000 because errors could occur later.
5) Activating the fast start of Windows 10 and Windows 8.1 is, as already explained, an option that also makes the shutdown of the computer faster.
In this blog we have been particularly sensitive to PC shutdown procedures and we have several other articles about it:
- How to turn off a PC automatically, with a "sleep timer"
- How to turn off the computer remotely.
- Programs to shutdown the PC automatically
- Turn off the Windows 10 PC by voice
- Turn off the computer from the smartphone
When it comes to shutting down the PC, it always comes to my mind how terrible the shutdown of Windows 95/98 was, when you had to wait for the word "Now you can shut down your computer" to appear on the screen and then press the button.
Fortunately, at least, with modern Microsoft operating systems, once the PC has been turned off, you can also go away without waiting for the actual computer to stop.
