If you’re a Windows XP user, there’s a good chance that you’ve experienced the frustrating problem of your computer shutting down suddenly and without warning. This can be a real annoyance, as it can prevent you from using your computer for any length of time. There are a few ways to fix this problem, but it’s important to be aware of them before trying any of them. Here are three tips to help you shut down your computer faster:

  1. Disable startup items: This is the first step in fixing the shutdown problem. By disabling some of the startup items, you’ll likely have less chance of having them start up unexpectedly and causing your computer to shut down prematurely.
  2. Use an antivirus program: Another way to try to fix the shutdown problem is by using an antivirus program. This will help protect your computer from being infected with malware and other harmful programs.
  3. Use a powercfg utility: Finally, another way to try to fix the shutdown problem is by using a powercfg utility. This will help you set up your computer so that it shuts down automatically when it’s not needed anymore.

Usually what is happening is one or more applications is hanging up to 20 seconds (in the Registry all values are set to milliseconds) while the OS tries to shutdown. Before making any changes to the Registry it is highly advisable to create a backup.

The first thing we need to do is access the Registry by going to Start Run and type in “regedit” (no quotes) then click OK.

Now with the Registry Editor open the first change we want to make is under HKEY_CURRENT_USER Control Panel Desktop scroll down to HungAppTimeout and change the default 5000 to 1000 then click OK.

Then scroll down to WaitToKillAppTimeout from 20000 to 1000 then click OK.  Keep the Registry Editor open as we have 3 more values to change in two different sections.

Next we are going to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE System CurrentControlSet Control and double click on WaitToKillServiceTimeout to 1000 then click OK.

Finally, we need to navigate to HKEY_USERS DEFAULT Control Panel Desktop and change HungAppTimeout to 1000 and click OK.

Then scroll down to WaitToKillAppTimeout to 1000 and click OK.

While I am showing much lower timeout times in this post you might want to start with say 20000 to 10000 as some programs may be performing cleanup maintenance.  No matter what you change the values to, make sure they are uniform throughout each setting.