PC shutdown time

Hi
I am new to this site

First off all I want to thank you for the PC start up information, setting up 4 cores in msconfig it cut my time down from 285 to 190 not bad I guess. The problem I am having my pc seems to take ages to shut down. when the sutdown logo comes up on the screen I can hear the hard drive clicking away shutting down everything but then my HDD light just sits there permantly on with no sign of HDD activity for about 1 minute then suddenly flashes a few times then shuts down straight away

I hope that makes sense. does anybody have any ideas
Many thanks
Nik

Hi Nik and welcome to Vista Forums

It sounds as though you have got the paging file set to clear its contents on shutdown. Have a look at the following Tutorial: http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/157323-virtual-memory-paging-file-clear-shutdown.html

Dwarf

1 word WOW!!

It worked the shutdown time was cut in half. thank you so much, this has been bugging me for sometime now.

The tutorials and advice are great :D

thanks very much

Nik

Microsoft is painfully aware of the many and varied things that people install on their computer that don't always want to play nice, like being shut down by windows.

I'd have to guess that's why they put into their Windows Registry the ability to just KILL reluctant programs, drivers, etc.
(if you can't close it in an orderly fashion, KILL it)

There is also written into the normal shutdown program in windows the ability to use a switch to do a Quick Shutdown, killing that which will not shut down pleasantly.

Once you've tweaked the registry and created your Quick Shutdown icon (shortcut) on your desktop, you can expect shutdown times from 5 to 10 Seconds on Vista.

I believe I've posted those tweaks before, so I won't repeat them here, unless specifically requested to do so.

Good Luck,
The Shadow

Hi theShadow

Would you be able to point me in the right direction on how to perform the task you mentioned
Many thanks
Nik

Hi Nik,

Have a look at the following Tutorial (and its related links): http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/70567-shutdown.html

Thanks guy's much appreciated

Nik

For those who are new to Registry editing and are queasy about even trying it,
just running a little regedit script to do the job is a lot safer, and faster too.

ALWAYS, make a new registry Restore Point before changing anything in your registry.

As for the shutdown 'shortcut', it's simple, IF you know how to make a shortcut on your desktop.

The syntax for it is:

%windir%\System32\shutdown.exe -s -t 00 -f

Copy and paste that line into a NEW Shortcut, on your desktop and you've to a Quick Shutdown shortcut.
For myself, I've also created a "Reboot" shortcut, by changing the -s in that line to -r.
-s means shutdown, while -r means reboot.

The 00 in that line is the delay time. I use 00, but you can use whatever time delay you like.
I've never had any problem with the 00 setting, whether it be in XP or Vista.

As was stated earlier, shutting down your programs that may have open files, is always a good idea, before shutting down windows.

Cheers Mates,
Shadow

To tweak the registry from a script, copy and paste the following blue lines into a notepad document and save as, "shutdown.reg". Then just run the program to do the tweak.
Reboot your PC to make the edit permanent.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control]
"WaitToKillServiceTimeout"="1000"

1000 milliseconds, or 1 second, is the minimum time windows will allow.

Thanks for that that TheShadow

Nik