How to Minimize Windows Shut Down Time

You have already thrashed your old window PC and changed it with a new PC. Your new PC is a high-end PC with the latest configuration. However, still, you find that your PC is taking a long time to shut down. You must be worried that even though you have spent so much money, then why are you not getting the desirable results. Now what else you can do? So the answer is that don’t worry and just go through this article. It will help you to minimize the time of Windows shutdown.

Reduce Time to Kill Services and Programs at Windows Shutdown:

When we shut down Windows, then it firstly sends the messages to all the open applications and services that the system is shutting down. Before shutting down windows waits for some time to allow these opened applications and services to close.

Once you click on shut down button, Windows waits 5 seconds before it closes any services.

Therefore, if your computer is taking a long time to shutdown, then you need to check “WaitToKillServiceTimeout” from registry editor. To do so please follow the steps below:

1. Click on the Start button on the taskbar and in the Start Search field, type REGEDIT and press Enter.
2. In REGEDIT Window, click on the “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE” plus sign.
3. Click on the “System” plus sign, after that click on “CurrentControlSet”, then “Control”
4. Now, in the right panel, locate “WaitToKillServiceTimeout”

You can find the value under Data Column. This is the wait time which is given in milliseconds.

Please make sure that the time should not be greater than 5 seconds (5000 milliseconds.). If it is greater than 5 seconds, then Double click on “WaitToKillServiceTimeout” entry and change the value data to 5000.

This will reduce the shutdown time of your PC.

Disable Clear Page File at Shut Down:

Windows use page file to store some part of your data so that it can be accessed faster. If this option is enabled, then Window will clear this page file at every shutdown of the computer. This in result will increase the shutdown time of Windows. This increase in time will depend on the size of that page file.

If your PC do not contain any sensitive information, then it is better to disable this option. This will really help you in decreasing the shutdown time as the time which Windows take to clear the page file is now saved. Below are the steps provided to disable this feature:

1. Click on the Start button on the taskbar and in the Start Search field, type REGEDIT and press Enter.
2. Now browse to the following location:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
3. In the right panel, locate “ClearPageFileAtShutdown”
4. Now in the Data column check its value.

(If the value is 1 then it means that Window is clearing the page file at shutdown. If you find the value as 0 then it means that Window is not clearing the page file at shutdown.)

If the value is 1 then change its value to 0 by double-clicking on “ClearPageFileAtShutdown”. In the value data field change the value to 0.

This will make shutdown process relatively faster than before.

Clearing Your Startup Items:

Though it really sounds weird that how clearing startup items will impact the shutdown time of PC. However, the total number of programs which are starting at system startup needs to be closed at the time of shut down. Therefore, it is recommended to prevent all unneeded programs to start at boot up.

To do so, follow the steps below:

1. Click on the “Start” button on the taskbar.
2. Select “Run” option from the menu.
3. Type “msconfig” in Run box.
4. In MSCONFIG window, select Startup tab.
5. Now, uncheck the unwanted applications (try to keep minimal applications checked at Startup).

Finally, click on Apply button and restart your system.

This will not only improve your PC’s startup time but also helps in faster shut down of PC.

Create a Shortcut for Shutdown:

Creating a shortcut for the shutdown is really a simple process. You do not need to go registry for making the shortcut. To create a shortcut, you can follow these simple steps:

1. Right click on any empty area of your desktop.
2. Click on New > Shortcut
3. Now type the following value shutdown /s /f /t 0 and click next.

Now you just have created a fast shutdown shortcut for your Windows OS.

All these above steps will surely help in decreasing the shutdown time of your PC. Just follow all the given solutions and feel the difference by yourself.