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Reason of slow shut down and troubleshooting
Shutting down windows is not as simple as turning the computer or any other electronic device off.when you give command to shut down the changes to the Operating System must be saved,System processes must end, data must be saved,unwanted information must be removed from memory and all the network connection must end.


Usually, this process takes just a few seconds, but the complex series of steps that take place behind the scenes can sometimes trip over itself and slow the shut down process.The result is a system that never actually shuts down, or takes an extremely long time to shut down.It really irritates when you have to go to some party and your machine keeps you intact due to its lazy shut down.Here are the reasons why your Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 PC might not shut down, and how to fix it.


1. PAGE FILE PROBLEMS CAUSING VERY SLOW SHUT DOWN

Page file is the Virtual memory of your computer or you can say an extension for your memory stick-RAM that is allocated on Hard Drive of your computer.Windows OS swap pages of memory to disk when they are not used. On a running system, this pagefile is opened exclusively by the operating system, and it is well protected. However, systems that are configured to allow booting to other operating systems might have to make sure that the system pagefile is wiped clean when this system shuts down. This ensures that sensitive information from process memory that might go into the pagefile is not available to an unauthorized user who manages to directly access the pagefile.This virtual memory is maintained in a file called pagefile.sys located in root drive normally C: drive.

When this option is enabled for security reason, it causes the system pagefile to be cleared upon clean shutdown. This takes considerable time of the Operating System to flush-out the pagefile, thus causing the slow shut down.

Disable the clearing Pagefile at shut down option to increase the shut down speed.

Open regedit.exe and go to the following directory:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

Now, Find the registry entry named ClearPageFileAtShutdown in the right pane. If it is set to 1 it is enabled, and may delay the shut down process. Right-click it, select Modify, and change the value to 0.This will most of the time fix the slow shut down problem.


2. TWEAK REGISTRY TO REDUCE TIMEOUT TO KILL SERVICES OR APPS TO FIX SLOW SHUT DOWN.

When you give command to shuts down, Windows attempts to properly close all running processes. If a service doesn’t close immediately, Windows waits for a few seconds, until it prompts the user that the service is not responding to the shutdown request. The amount of this waiting time is defined by registry keys and you can reduce it.

Please follow the steps outlined in this article, it should in no way harm your system otherwise improper editing the of registry can cause system to crash.Here are few registry hacks that you need to do.

1. Navigate to the following registry key

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

On the right, find and double-click the string > WaitToKillAppTimeout.

If this entry does not exist, you can create it. Right-click into the folder and click > New > String Value, and name it > WaitToKillAppTimeout and change its value to 1000..

if you see an entry called > AutoEndTasks, set its value data to 1.You can create one if it is not there.
Slow Shut Down Caused by Registry
Slow Shut Down Caused by Registry


Similarly change the value for HungAppTimeout registry key to 1000.

The second part of this tip changes the same settings, this time for all users on the system.

2. Navigate to 'HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop'

Highlight the 'WaitToKillAppTimeout' value.
Set it to '1000' (the default should be 20000).
Now highlight the 'HungAppTimeout' value.
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