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.

[tywat]

New out of the box my Sony Vaio with windows vista was unable to shut down. I had to remove the battery, and it would never wake from sleep mode. and hibernated randomly. it would also crash every 2 hours or so. Since installing Windows 7 all of these problems have been resolved.

[rakker91]

Wow, this is a stupid article. If you want to see how long "WINDOWS" takes to shut down, do a clean install with NOTHING else installed on the machine. The shutdown is nearly instant, same with the boot. Obviously, MS is right, it's third party applications. MS is just being nice and saying, o.k. we'll wait for those apps to cleanly shut down.

A good thing, too--if MS were more forceful, imagine a database machine that hadn't yet had the chance to commit data to the disc.

To find the third party app, install an app and then shut down. When you find the one that changes the shutdown from instant to 5 minutes, you will know who to call and complain to.

Your analogies are flawed. Everything you listed doesn't allow third party modifications. Your supposition that MS doesn't know how to do it is flawed--look at the XBOX. It shuts off instantly. How about In Sync in cars? Instant.

Rather than blaming MS for your stupid programs, maybe you should use different programs.

[hellomad]

rakker91 ^5 well said wrt to database products, yeah perhaps they never used db at all else they will know the pain of managing it. you the man. you pointed out another fine mis-information circulating widely. offers a mug of beer on my account. now wait and hold on and buckle your seat belt tight, some MAC-MORON will end up speaking utter rubbish again. you never know man, you can never trust turds and MAC NON-DEVs. they are simply perfect random laughter.
user A: hey why is my PC so garbage?
user B: because you didnt configure it properly answers almost all asked and answered questions.
may be we can learn more from users like these who use common sense. you did it right mike.

[jcbroadbent]

Wow, this is a stupid comment. An operating system is supposed to be a shell within which you run your reall applications. It shouldn't try to be an application of in and of itself. If you can't run applications efficiently, then what good it the operating system? To blame the application is just moronic.

[jcbroadbent]

It takes me about 3 seconds to shut donw my G4 Mac running OSX Tiger, once I click the "shut down" button. All the problems you mentioned happen to me on my PC running Windows XP and are precisely the reason why I switched to Mac. On the rare occasion when a program freezes on my Mac, there's this nifty little menu item called "force quit" which, with 1 click imediately closes the frozen program, enabling you to resatart it if you chose without the need of rebooting. It also only takes aabout 10 seconds from the time I hit the power button until I'm completely booted up and ready to get to work.

[nagasin]

@Larry Magid, author of this article... If you are encountering that many program crashes, you should really be asking your software vendors to fix the problem, instead of wondering why Windows won't terminate crashed programs properly. What software are you running that is so unstable, and yet so irreplaceable, that you are willing to put up with constant crashes (aside from Windows, that is :P)?

[jcbroadbent]

Windows is completely replaceable. Despite everyone trying to blame the individual applications, its the unnecessary complexity of Windows that causes the problems. I have identical applications for Mac that never freeze, crash, become corrupted or unstable.

[brogs65]

I was relieved to read Larry,s Article re Windows, I thought the problem was with with my Machine and the time it takes to shut it down, the main problem is it varie,s so much, one time its off in a couple of minutes or even less, then the next thing, I check a couple of Hrs later and the damn thing is still on, go figure !
Mike

[GardenLobster]

I work for the Dept. of Defense and my PC won't shut down OR restart. The IT section often has to call me after installing updates and needing to manually push and hold the power button to turn it off and then again to turn it back on. When I'm not here, sometimes they'll just leave it in limbo until I get back and it will have spent several days in "Windows is preparing to shut down..." mode, because they don't want to walk all the way over here and physically push the power button. So, not even the govt. knows how to fix this.

[SeriousTechConsumer]

Larry,

you are absolutely right. As a temporary fix I have installed a program that will turn off my XP-based notebook very quickly. The thing I hate is the 20 questions I have to answer regarding files that may be open, or apps that seem to want permission to shut down.

What Microsoft could do is this, they could have a fast shutdown button that says, I'm shutting down and kiss any unsaved data goodbye.

What they could also do is create a "last shutdown" folder, where all open files are dumped, that you could go back to an process (at a time of your choosing) when you restart.

That's probably too smart an idea for Microsoft, so I have little hope of seeing anything as useful as this in my lifetime.

The bottom line is this, I refuse to be held hostage to a computer that takes five minutes to start up or shut down. Microsoft better get wise to this, or I (and many others) will most assuredly vote (elsewhere) with our dollars.

Larry, you are RIGHT ON! (OOPS, my age is showing.) If only more of your colleagues would give this type of specific criticism, instead of whining why they don't LIKE Vista, it would be a far better world.

[gjl229]

My Osborne 1 boots and shuts down effortlessly. Some clever design using a single-pole/single-throw power switch, I expect.

[grinningevild]

I keep thinking about all the times I hit shut down on my computer and go off to bed, only to discover the next morning that it never made it to shut down. The other thing was that for a while after I switched to Vista it would always restart after I put it into sleep mode - after about 1 year I discovered it was a 4-port USB hub that was the culprit - apparently not Vista compatible. Sigh... a whole year.

[hidden101]

i registered just to leave this comment.

when i see people complain about why windows isn't working the way they believe it should, the problem can almost always be traced back to them. the other possibility is bad hardware, but you need to understand that it's up to the hardware maker to build a device well and then also write drivers that aren't buggy. MS can't really do much about that when the hardware is sub-par. but you have to admit it's awfully nice of MS to make an OS that gives you the choice to install it on an extremely wide variety of hardware, unlike Apple. so let's get back to user error. i don't know what you people are doing to mess up your computers, but i have 8 computers running Windows (XP, Server 2003, Vista) in my house right now and they all work wonderfully. they shutdown within seconds of receiving a shutdown command and they boot up quick also. i don't do any special tuning other than turn off my page file. we're quickly getting to the point where a page file isn't even needed anymore because we're getting so much RAM now and 64 bit architecture is allowing it all to be utilized. anyway, clearing the page file sometimes can slow down a shutdown quite a bit. maybe that's your problem. so then my suggestion to you is, be more mindful of what's running on your computer and realize that it's going to take some time with your slow computer to kill the million programs you have open and kill the mile long list of programs you have in your taskbar. complain about Windows all you want, but give someone a Mac that doesn't want to take the time to learn how it's OS works, and they will find a way to mess it up and then complain that it doesn't work. mark my words. i've done plenty of things to mess up OS X but the difference is that i didn't act like i knew what i was doing and then complained about it.

[jsedlak119]

This article is a hack at Microsoft simply to try and sit on the cool kids' bench. Pathetic "journalism". Rather than investigate what is actually causing the shutdown problems you chalk it up to Windows being at fault. My bet is that it is something you are doing or software you installed that is causing the problem. My evidence of this is that you can have quick shutdown times with the software installed that is listed in your screenshot. You could have done tests and presented your results, but my guess is that you would then have an ethical dilemma in posting this horrible article.

[rancidpeanutbutter]

My 2¢ (even though I seriously doubt anyone is reading this):

3-D screen savers can cause problems with Standby and Hibernate. MS knows this and there is a patch.

Also, for all you that are having trouble shutting down, have you tried a little app by Steve Gibson called "Wizmo? ( http://www.grc.com/wizmo/wizmo.htm )

You can amend the command line to force Windows to shut down with an exclamation mark (!); although caution is advised using this as you will see if you go to the site.

I don't understand the people who have problems with windows. I have used it for more than 10 years and have no problems, turning it off or on. Maybe some people should take a refresher course on operating a computer..

[gdmilabo]

good to read that i'm not alone in this world of windows. i'm using vista now and the situation of having to take out the battery to turn off my laptop had becoming more of a daily routine. in my case, the constantly unresponsive programs are windows explorer and itunes. i had some cases with chrome but usually it's itunes especially if i run it with chrome. sometime i just tell myself; well, it's the world we live in. maybe i should go with my daughter who's now using a macbook.

[0zcan]

I installed Windows 7 the other week and it was working perfectly on its own until I installed new software which were designed for WIndows XP.

The new software unfortunately is causing problems and something is ausing the system to hang. It will not shutdown so I go for the reset button. Anyway, the point is Windows works fantastic and only falls over when the user :) decides to install outdated or non-compliant software.

People who think every software under the sun written by developers for windows is going to work and function without a problem have to get their thinking correct and have to stop hitting MS under-the-belly.

As for MAC and LINUX, well they are harder for me to control and do not allow me to control my computer system. They have more restrictions than Windows and cause even more strife for people like me. Perhaps others feel the opposite but none-the-less all these OS are a necessary evil where society now can't live without it. We need them for the good and for the bad times.

Farewell!