Why can't Windows shut down promptly?

Back in the old days when TVs and radios had tubes, it took a couple of minutes for a set to warm up before you could watch or listen. But even then, you could turn it off instantly. That's not true with Windows PCs. Not only does it sometimes take seemingly forever for them to boot, but it can take several minutes for one to shut down. Even worse, if a program stops responding, you may or may not be able to shut it down. And even if it does terminate, it may take awhile.

And by the way, I'm not just talking about Windows XP and Vista. I'm having the same problem with Windows 7 though, to be fair, the new operating system is still in beta so it's possible that Microsoft could amaze and delight me by fixing this in the final version.

Why can't Windows shut down promptly? | Larry Magid at Large - CNET News

I have never understood why it takes so long to shut down. I'm told it's because programs have to close, and I ask, "Why?" I don't know of a single mechanical,, electrical, or electronic device that you simply can't just shut off, and it will work just fine when you restart.

Why do programs have to take all that time to close? Many times, I have yanked the cord and killed the beast. Of course, upon restart, you are told that 'windows did not shut down properly' and tried to foce a complete check of the system.

I cancel that and it boots just fine. After all these years, MS has not figured a way to simply shut down a computer without all the time consuming nonsense?

robertpri said:

I have never understood why it takes so long to shut down. I'm told it's because programs have to close, and I ask, "Why?" I don't know of a single mechanical,, electrical, or electronic device that you simply can't just shut off, and it will work just fine when you restart.

Why do programs have to take all that time to close? Many times, I have yanked the cord and killed the beast. Of course, upon restart, you are told that 'windows did not shut down properly' and tried to foce a complete check of the system.

I cancel that and it boots just fine. After all these years, MS has not figured a way to simply shut down a computer without all the time consuming nonsense?

Click to expand...

The electronic components of your PC can power off instantly, and they aren't the cause for the delay. It's the software that has to be closed before the electronic components can power off. In a modern operating system, you have numerous processes and services running in the background, running everything from virus scanners, to windows explorer (which allows you to navigate your files) to your network connections. All of those services have to be stopped by the operating system prior to power being disconnected, to prevent corruption of your system files. If the processes aren't shut down properly and your system files are corrupted, then you run into boot errors, system errors and data loss.

So the key difference between your TV and your computer, is your TV is just electronics, where your computer is electronics coupled with extensive software and the software is what causes the delay.

P.S. You might get away with manually powering down before the OS shuts the system down a few times, but if you make it a habit, you WILL cause data loss and system file corruption and cause damage to files. This can cause everything from slow system performance and disk errors, to boot errors and missing system files that prevent your operating system from loading.

Thanks, SuperFuzz, but I don't get it. The most one should lose with an instant shutdown is some file that was not saved. Shame on the user. But I still do not see any reason for a "service" to be fully closed.

As I noted, I have 'yanked the cord' many times and had no problem on restart, other than the annoying reminder that it did not shut down properly.

I maintain this 'close everything first' is something we endure because windows makes us do it. And we don't challenge it.

But of course, I have little faith in Redmond.

robertpri said:

Thanks, SuperFuzz, but I don't get it. The most one should lose with an instant shutdown is some file that was not saved. Shame on the user. But I still do not see any reason for a "service" to be fully closed.

As I noted, I have 'yanked the cord' many times and had no problem on restart, other than the annoying reminder that it did not shut down properly.

I maintain this 'close everything first' is something we endure because windows makes us do it. And we don't challenge it.

But of course, I have little faith in Redmond.

Click to expand...

Many of the services running in the background are crucial to Windows operation, and link to dll files in your system folders. (The core files that make your operating system run). If those services are running when windows shuts down, changes made to system settings and files are not saved, but worse is the fact that the dll file is actively being used when power is cut, which can actually corrupt the code in the specific file. If the corrupted file is crucial to windows operation, then you get boot failure. If it isn't, then windows can repair the file, however the data that was not purged from the swap files during shutdown (as would happen during normal shutdown) then gets turned into temp files which bloat your system.

I am not disagreeing with you, I just don't like it. Any good backup system with volume shadow services and dynamic file copy can stop any operating system file for the split second it takes to copy it. Blink of an eye.

If VSS apps can do this, why can't windows? Stop the file in that same split second, only leave it stopped.

It's a moot point, really, because it will never be changed.

Well not being a programmer, I couldn't tell you why they can't program the services to instantly shut down. I assume there are limitations in what they can do with the code, as I can't imagine they would intentionally have it take so long. Heck, I'm just happy it's down to 30 seconds from the 1.5 minutes it was with my first Win 95 system!

In case it came across that way, I wasn't trying to argue, just trying to warn you that you can cause yourself grief if you improperly shut down your system and maybe save you a headache later on.

robertpri said:

The most one should lose with an instant shutdown is some file that was not saved. Shame on the user. But I still do not see any reason for a "service" to be fully closed.

Click to expand...

Your question can be rephrased as "why can't the OS, all non-default services, and all apps always keep their on-disk file structures perfectly in sync with what is going on in physical memory, so that I can yank the power cord at any time and be assured of starting exactly where I left off?"

Think of it this way: physical memory responds in the range between nano and microseconds (10E-9 ==> 10E-6), depending on what's being asked of it. Access time to a magnetic hard drive is comprised of the seek time (head traversal to the correct track, say 5ms on a fast drive), plus the rotational delay while the sector in question rotates under the head (another ~5ms for a 7200rpm HDD). In total, the disk takes around a hundredth of a second (10ms, 10E-2) to begin reading or writing at any given location.

Your computer's HDD is somewhere on the order of one million times slower (*Dr.Evil voice*) than its physical memory. Unless you're willing to put up with some very unresponsive and slow computing, I'd suggest you leave it to the OS and apps to work mostly in memory, and to commit what they need to the HDD only when it's really necessary

Hey guys, I don't know, I had in the past with XP and Vista the same issue, well you will laugh for the way I solve it.

It's pretty simple, you know that the computer takes long time to kill all the processes and the background services but there's something more that will make it slow or not shutdown promptly, and it is INTERNET EXPLORER!!

Well, the way I solve it is just deleting all the temporary information of IE, and also everything else such password, history, cookies using the internet options of IE.

After this, I just shutdown the computer and issue solved