How to speed shutdown on WinXP SP2

[nealh]

I have noticed that my shutdown takes much longer now...I had a PSU die and when i put a new one in ...my shutdown is now longer than boot up...

I should note prior to the PSU dying..I changed my AV software from Kaspersky to NOD32....was waiting for an update...shutdown and noticed my floppy was not recognized later that night is when the PSU died after trying to reinstall the PSU

I should point out with my new PSU...winxp loads fine...I have rund 3d mark03, encoded a video and transferred file ok from dvd to HDD...

I do not think anything was corrupted but who knows when PSU died...the computer has been running now for 3 days with no other issues...so not sure if the new AV software changed a setting or whatever???

How can I speed winxp sp2 shutdown

 

[ITJunkie]

Pull the plug on your PC

Seriously though, I'm not sure what you can do to increase shutdown speed. Do you have a large user profile? That can slow things down if it is too large.

 

[timswim78]

Check to see if Windows is clearing your pagefile at shutdown. If so, it can greatly increase your shutdown time. Check out www.tweakxp.com for more info on this.

 

[MrChad]

It might have something to do with your anti-virus switch.

 

[nealh]

I figured the AV could be an issue...
timswim78..thanks will I check pagefile

 

[Budman]

This can help too.

Start Regedit.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control.
Click on the "Control" Folder.
Select "WaitToKillServiceTimeout"
Right click on it and select Modify.
Set it a value lower than 2000 (Mine is set to 200)

 

[nealh]

Thank you very much

I am having trouble finding info on the pagefile tweak

 

[jaykleg]

I was thinking that installing Microsoft's own fix, UPHClean, might be a safer way to speed shutdowns that have been made slow by services that don't know when to quit.

The pagefile thing is unlikely to be your problem since you would have had to set it to do that and would remember doing so. It's not a tweak, it's a policy setting, so it isn't available on Windows XP Home Edition. IF you have the Professional edition you can enter "gpedit.msc" (but don't actually type the quotation marks) in the Start - Run box then navigate to Computer Configuration - Windows Settings - Local Policies - Security Options in the left pane, then scroll down the list in the right pane. You should see a policy called "Shutdown: Clear virtual memory pagefile" near the bottom of the list. If the policy is enabled, then your system is overwriting the pagefile at shutdown, when can add a LOT of time to the shutdown. But, as I said, the policy probably is not enabled. If it is, double-click that sucker and change its setting to disabled.

 

[Schadenfroh]

see my Guide to Free Performance

 

[timswim78]

Originally posted by: jaykleg
I was thinking that installing Microsoft's own fix, UPHClean, might be a safer way to speed shutdowns that have been made slow by services that don't know when to quit.

The pagefile thing is unlikely to be your problem since you would have had to set it to do that and would remember doing so. It's not a tweak, it's a policy setting, so it isn't available on Windows XP Home Edition. IF you have the Professional edition you can enter "gpedit.msc" (but don't actually type the quotation marks) in the Start - Run box then navigate to Computer Configuration - Windows Settings - Local Policies - Security Options in the left pane, then scroll down the list in the right pane. You should see a policy called "Shutdown: Clear virtual memory pagefile" near the bottom of the list. If the policy is enabled, then your system is overwriting the pagefile at shutdown, when can add a LOT of time to the shutdown. But, as I said, the policy probably is not enabled. If it is, double-click that sucker and change its setting to disabled.

I agree that he or some application had to change a setting in order to clear the pagefile, but there are lots of apps that do that.

Also, I am running XP HOME, and my pagefile gets cleared every time I shutdown.

 

[jaykleg]

I agree that he or some application had to change a setting in order to clear the pagefile, but there are lots of apps that do that.

Also, I am running XP HOME, and my pagefile gets cleared every time I shutdown.

There are lots of apps that cause the pagefile to be cleared at shutdown? That's news to me. I can certainly imagine that there are vendors who distribute "security-related" utilities that might clear the pagefile, but I can't imagine any advantage any other type of application would offer by clearing the pagefile. To tell you the truth, I think clearing the pagefile is a pretty weak security measure and only really useful in very specific circumstances.

If we want to help nealh with this side discussion I suppose we should be asking if this PC is writing extensively to the hard drive during this long shutdown. The OP didn't mention anything about such activity, and it would be very noticeable on most systems.

BTW, I'm assuming that you are seeing heavy drive writing activity during your shutdowns, and I wanted to know how it was that you determined that your pagefile was being cleared at shutdown on Windows XP Home Edition. I'm always interested in learning a new (to me) trick.

 

[nealh]

Jaykleg..thanks..I got UPH clean and will try this...I did not notice xs writing at shutdown...the log off and shutdown screens stayed up forever....before shutdown was in like 3 sec...(a bit exaggerated of course)

Schadenfroh
I went to Vipers page and set everything basically to Safe...not power user as there was little difference...so I figured I would try this first.....I had edited this before SP2 install..but I errantly used msconfig

thanks for the great advice I appreciate the help

 

[timswim78]

Originally posted by: jaykleg

I agree that he or some application had to change a setting in order to clear the pagefile, but there are lots of apps that do that.

Also, I am running XP HOME, and my pagefile gets cleared every time I shutdown.

There are lots of apps that cause the pagefile to be cleared at shutdown? That's news to me. I can certainly imagine that there are vendors who distribute "security-related" utilities that might clear the pagefile, but I can't imagine any advantage any other type of application would offer by clearing the pagefile. To tell you the truth, I think clearing the pagefile is a pretty weak security measure and only really useful in very specific circumstances.

If we want to help nealh with this side discussion I suppose we should be asking if this PC is writing extensively to the hard drive during this long shutdown. The OP didn't mention anything about such activity, and it would be very noticeable on most systems.

BTW, I'm assuming that you are seeing heavy drive writing activity during your shutdowns, and I wanted to know how it was that you determined that your pagefile was being cleared at shutdown on Windows XP Home Edition. I'm always interested in learning a new (to me) trick.

I should have mentioned that this is how I set up XP HOME to clear my pagefile:

Start Regedit. If you are unfamiliar with regedit please refer to our FAQ on how to get started.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
Select ClearPageFileAtShutdown from the list on the right.
Right on it and select Modify.
Change the value to 1 to enable.
Reboot your computer.

These directions came from tweakxp.com


Also, I should have been more specific about apps clearing the pagefile. Many of the performance tweaks, what I referred to as apps, that people install will clear the pagefile at shutdown.

 

[jaykleg]

So, in other words, you had to set Windows XP to do this deliberately. That was the point I was making before. nealh would surely remember doing what you did to Windows XP Home Edition, or what I would do with the group policy editor to Windows XP Professional, in order to get the pagefile to clear at shutdown. Of course if some third party software sets Windows to do this, and without telling the user, he might not know about it. But he'd still see the hard drive working its little heart out at shutdown time, and I guess nealh is not seeing that.

I thank you for the information about the registry edit. I'm making a note of it in case I ever need to work with Home Edition and set pagefile clearing on it. I wouldn't think, though, that pagefile clearing would be a useful feature for most people, especially those running the Home Edition. I've used it in conjunction with EFS with the recovery keys kept on removeable media so that anyone stealing a hard drive with encrypted data on it wouldn't be able to get remnants of the data from the pagefile if the drive happened to be stolen from one of our mobile systems. Is there some other use for it? Somebody really has to want to pry into your stuff pretty badly in order to resort to working on the pagefile.