You could hard-boil an egg in the time it takes some Windows XP systems to
shut down. If your PC doesn't know how to say good night, Gracie, try these
tips.
Don't Shut Down, Hibernate
There are only two reasons to shut down Windows: to save
electricity, and to reset the operating system when it starts acting goofy.
If nothing really bad is happening and the stars have aligned correctly, XP
can run reliably for days or even weeks between boots. So instead of
shutting down your system, tell it to go to sleep.
Putting Windows into Hibernate mode copies the contents of your machine's
RAM to your hard disk, then powers everything down, which saves just as much
electricity as shutting it down--from the hardware point of view, the two
actions are identical. Hibernating XP and waking it out of hibernation take
much less time than closing it and rebooting. For more information, read the
"
Enable
Hibernation" section in my September 2002 Answer Line.
Close Programs First
Windows must close every running program before it can shut itself
down, which is time consuming. Of course, you could close each program
manually beforehand to speed up the shutdown--but unless Windows seems to
take forever to close, that won't save you much time.
However, if your shutdowns are unusually slow, you could try closing your
running programs (both your applications and your system tray icons) prior
to turning Windows off. If your system shuts down more quickly, one of those
programs is causing the hang-up.
Watch Out for Bad Drivers
Buggy or improperly installed drivers can also cause shutdown
difficulties. Check to see if your device drivers need updates by
right-clicking My Computer and selecting Properties, Hardware, Device
Manager. Look for entries with yellow question marks or red exclamation
points: A question mark indicates that Windows is using a generic driver for
that device instead of one designed for it, and an exclamation point means
that the device is not working.
The drivers for graphics boards, sound cards, and printers are most likely
to need an update. Visit the vendors' Web sites to download the updated
drivers to your PC. Then right-click the entry in Device Manager, choose
Update Driver, and step through the wizard, selecting "No, not this
time" to the Windows Update question, and choosing the "specified location"
option when it appears. When you're able to navigate to the driver file,
select it and click OK to install it. When you finish updating your drivers,
close all open windows.
Terminate Terminal Services
Windows XP's Terminal Services can also cause recalcitrant
shutdowns. That's more, if you never use remote desktop, fast user
switching, remote assistance, the terminal server, or other Terminal
Services, you don't need them. To shut it off, select
Start, Run,
type
services.msc /s, and press Enter. Find and double-click the
Terminal Services listing. (Of course, if you don't have Terminal
Services installed, your slow shutdowns have another cause.) Change "Startup
type" to Disabled or Manual and click OK.
Don't Clear Virtual Memory
If you use Windows XP Pro (but not the Home edition, alas), you can
speed up your shutdowns by verifying that you're not clearing your virtual
memory whenever you exit Windows. Select Start, Run, type
gpedit.msc,
and press Enter. Navigate to
Computer Configuration\Windows
Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\Security Options in the left
pane. In the right pane, scroll to
Shutdown: Clear virtual memory
pagefile. If the option is enabled, double-click it, select
Disabled, and click OK. (You may not have this option on your system.)
Reduce Windows' Wait Time
You can speed up some shutdowns--and risk losing unsaved data--by
reducing the time Windows waits for a program to stop itself properly before
taking this job into its own disruptive hands. But first, save a restore
point as described in the third option in Scott Dunn's "
No-Brainer
Backups Using Windows' Own Tools." Then select
Start, Run, type
regedit, and press Enter. In the left pane navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control. Double-click the
WaitToKillServiceTimeout item in the right pane. Set it to a value
lower than the default 2000 (or 2 seconds), perhaps to 1000 (1 second).
Click OK, and then reboot.
