Comments on: Why can't Windows shut down promptly?

Windows XP, Vista, and even the beta of Windows 7 can take forever to shut down or terminate non-responsive applications. That can't be right.

[mzupan]

Why write an article if you have no answer/solution to the question?

[trippisme]

Cause he can?

[Alphaman63]

To see if someone else has a suggestion? BTW, this is a blog post, not a news article. Subtle difference.

[goldenguras]

I have also delved recently into this problem. I came across this when one of my friend mentioned it to me. I found a shortcut to do a complete shutdown. Ever since I just click on that friendly shortcut command to do the shutdown. I even installed it in his computer. He is very happy with it.

[trippisme]

Yeah, its "shutdown -f" or "shutdown -s -f" I can't remember which and I don't feel like testing it at this point in time. If I recall though, you can just put that right in the target for a shortcut, and it should work.

[Tod Smith]

This is a registry option to make the app close on shutdown without wait.

If MS made all Windows apps like Apple does with OSX then it wouldn't be an issue.

[trippisme]

Apple can do that because no one cares. If Windows locked down there systems like apple does, then they would face so many lawsuits it wouldn't even be funny. Plus, that would kinda defeat the whole point of a windows Machine. If you're going to complain, complain about how badly coded the third party drivers/software is. Cause Apple locking everyone out is the only reason that their systems seem better.

[Alphaman63]

Oh my, seems trippisme doesn't understand what BSD UNIX is...

"...locking everyone out..." Yeah, lmao...

[dlauber]

Do you actually think that Microsoft deliberately designed Windows to shut down slowly?

Of course not. I'm never been a Microsoft apologist, but there are probably some solid technical reasons the various incarnations of Windows shuts down slowly. While we occasionally run into slow shut downs, Windows XP Pro all of of our computers tends to shut down within 10-30 seconds every time. When it does take longer or it refuses to shut down at all (in which case you just turn off the power), the odds are that some third party application or utility is causing the problem.

[Jonathan]

Question. Why is Windows being singled out in this article? I had a MBP for 3 years and ran Tiger and Leopard on it. It can easily be as slow, if not slower to shut down. Actually in point of fact it was worse on Tiger with the occasional hang on shutdown where the system would basically exit to the command line but not power off. Apple is not better and some of my previous experiences with Linux....hell they had issues just starting up.

[Aanon]

I agree with you, Leopard also has occasional issues. The Black Window of Death appears from time to time, asking you to turn off power, and sometimes a shutdown never stops after it has thrown out all apps and logged out the user.

[OziIan]

I agree entirely. Being part of the 'Now Generation' I expect my computer to start and shut 'NOW', not in 10 minutes time (or never as in the article), HOWEVER ...

By using one of the tools in Spybot S&D, I have disabled (in registry values?) all the crapware that loads itself into memory even though it is not needed. In my case, for instance, I have disabled MS Office (always loads, never used).

.For some unknown reason, my laptop with XP SP3 starts and shuts down in seconds after I do a registry clean (CCleaner) and full HD defrag/file compression (O&O Defrag).

Prior to that the start/shutdown was characterised by the disk access light flashing briefly about once a second.

Somewhere, in one of my attempts to find out why, I came across a log file (??) that clearly indicated that certain functions were timing out.

Is it possible that the OS is waiting for a response from registry keys that are no longer valid values or whatever?

I'm an advanced computer user, but I'm certainly not computer-smart enough to even try to explain in detail what I have observed. It's up to you people and Microsoft to sort out why.

[vankuvr]

There is one mandatory utility required to run windows properly. Of course it doesn't come with. But it's free at cnet downloads. If you run Advanced Systemcare from Iobit 2 or 3 times a week you will never have this kind of conflicted mess and you'll never have to re-install you OS no matter what kind of goofy apps you install. Almost NEVER!

[vankuvr]

There is one mandatory utility required to run windows properly. Of course it doesn't come with. But it's free at cnet downloads. If you run Advanced Systemcare from Iobit 2 or 3 times a week you will never have this kind of conflicted mess and you'll never have to re-install you OS no matter what kind of goofy apps you install. Almost NEVER!

[lewac]

albeit a tad off topic. the easiest way to shut the thing down is to not start it up to begin with. use ubuntu instead. that OS never has an issue with a dead app that a simple command doesn't fix:

do this from the CLI: xkil

there are other ways (there are ALWAYS alternative methods of doing ANYTHING under linux) as well. btw ubuntu is not complex (if one doesn't drill too deeply) at all. try it. most of us around here find it easier to go from winy2k to ubuntu than from winy2k to windoze vista and most certainly beyond. ubuntu smokes! windoze cuts a lotta zzz's... really

remember also this is in beta. and beta's are always quicker than the final release unfortunately it seems.

[Aanon]

Well, I used SuSE Linux for many years, and there never were any issues that couldn't be solved by killing X11 and restarting it. There always was a terminal window behind one of the F-keys that enabled you to solve any problem. The Linux kernel and drivers and standard processes were rock solid.

[refinisher11]

Thank God!!!
I thought I was the only one with these problems!!!! Thank you!

[davidwb]

Maybe the Apple Tax should be renamed the shut down tax.....

[Drummer16161616]

Never had this problem with a fresh install of XP. Most often it is poorly coded third party apps that don't respond to shutdown hooks that cause this. PLEASE STOP BASHING WINDOWS. It's infinitely better than Linux and has support for way more apps than crappy overpriced OSX. Oh yea, you can actually play video games on Windows PCs among countless other things. Windows is definitely not perfect, but it is worlds better than the competition. Macbooks don't even have 2 mouse buttons and you can't maximize windows. That alone makes the OS useless.

[tm_anon]

And that comment alone is why you're the dumbest person to respond to this article. Hang your head in shame.

[Aanon]

Don't need two buttons thank you, I have two fingers that I can press at the touch-pad simultaneously, and there is the second button for you.

[mikestatic1]

I have faced my share of hung programs and Windows hangs, but generally with no long term effects. I use those few extra moments in the office while my PC is shutting down to check out my admin as she bends over cleaning her desk. Thank you, Microsoft!

[SKossu]

Larry Magid how can you even consider yourself an expert when you seem to have absolutely no clue what so ever on Operating Systems nor general computer knowledge. You wrote that you have had laptops that were so stubborn that you had to remove the battery to turn them off? You do realize that you could of held the power on/off button down for a few seconds which would force the laptop to power off. How the hell can't you not know that?

Also why do I get the feeling that you are only here to target Windows? Every single operating system that properly shuts off the computer and doesn't go to any kind of sleeping mode will take about the same amount of time.

Also, try closing the programs from its process rather than under Programs.. that will force close it rather than for Windows to try saving your session.... but since you are an expert (or at least that's what your hallucination seems to think) you already knew this.

[Gasaraki]

Are you serious? My Windows installations never took more than 45 sec to shut down. Now Windows 7 is even faster. Stop running so much junk in the background....

[KeganFleming]

I'm not an OS fanboy, though I'm sure I'll be called one. The truth is simply that I'm in love with Ubuntu, haha. For those saying it's not possible to shut down/startup quickly, I challenge them to try Ubuntu. I can shut down in around 20 seconds, and startup in about a minute and a half, max. Windows simply has too much bloatware to startup/shutdown quickly.

[egfx]

I'm still seeing this with windows 7 too! Cant believe this is still an issue,
http://www.ucubd.com/Index.aspx?id=1172&cid=3

[jbattan]

Yes, "it's possible that Microsoft could amaze and delight me by fixing this", but really, what kind of track record does MS have in amazing any of us with reliability or having the OS do as we ask? They're too busy coming out with new features and marketing the heck out of it to worry about spending the time it takes to build a quality product. I'm so sick of Windows unreliability, from the early 3.1 days, thru 95, 98, XP, and now Vista. Windows 7 is just going to be a couple new features and a bug fix or two; there is nothing really new about it, and I wouldn't expect it to be any better at anything than Vista is, which is to say horrible at the basics like boot up and power down. Oh, and running a program without it crashing or causing the whole system to hang. I'm moving to a Mac ASAP. UNIX rules!

[tm_anon]

While you're at it, try out a LiveCD of Ubuntu on your current set up. I did, won't ever look back.

[pjvance1973]

Under XP, most common reason is a number of registry entries indicating how long Windows should wait for each application to shut down before forcing a shutdown. For my own personal use, I wrote up a quick, single-dialog application that allows me to see what these values are set to, and change them to much smaller values.

WaitToKillAppTimeout
HungAppTimeout
WaitToKillServiceTimeout

There are probably keys with these names in several locations in your registry. They are probably all set much higher than 1000 (ms), I prefer to set them all to 1000.

There will be another key called AutoEndTasks, that should be set to 1.

I would tell you explicitly what the full location strings are, unfortunately whoever wrote this program up did an *awesome* job commenting it. (Yeah - that was me.)

I would assume Vista and 7 operate similarly, but mine boot and shut down quickly, since I currently only use those OSs for testing. :)

[Aanon]

Having a boring Sunday afternoon, I am bound to repeat myself:
Windows does not know what the apps are up to unless they are part of the OS, like IE, so it makes no sense for Microsoft to assume any app could be forced to shutdown within one second at any moment in time. Assuming this will guarantee corrupt data in one or more apps at most shutdowns.
So do not follow this advice.

[pjvance1973]

There's an article elsewhere on the CNET site (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13880_3-9900788-68.html) from last year, recommending modifying the same values I mentioned, except that it recommends a value of 2 seconds instead of one second - although it does indicate you can use 1 second if you're especially in a hurry. (I may have gotten these entries from this article initially, or I may have got them from one of several similar sites that pop up when googling various terms.)

Been doing this for over a year on multiple systems, with no noticeable problems. With all the time I've spent not waiting for my system to shut down, if something did happen at this point - totally worth it.

[nicmart]

It was very diplomatic to avoid mentioning that Macs shut down very quickly. Nicely done.