IT Gang - A place for tips and tricks

When you shut down Windows XP, the OS tries its best to make sure that all services (they help run things like graphics, printers etc) are shut down. But there are times when they don't close, thus Windows XP tries to give it the chance to shut down itself. This amount of time that windows waits for the service to close is stored in the system registry. If you modify this setting, then windows will shut down the service earlier. To modify the setting, follow the directions below:

1. Start Regedit.
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control.
3. Click on the "Control" Folder.
4. Select "WaitToKillServiceTimeout"
5. Right click on it and select Modify.
6. Set it to a value lower than 2000, say 1000 as a test.

To speed up the shutdown process even more, you can create a one-click-shutdown following these directions:

• Navigate to your Desktop.
• On the Desktop, right-click and go to New, then to Shortcut (in other words, create a new shortcut).
• You should now see a pop-up window instructing you to enter a command line path.
  
  Enter one of these as the path: SHUTDOWN -s -t 01
  
• If the C: drive is not your local hard drive, then replace "C" with the correct letter of the hard drive.
• Click the "Next" button.
• Name the shortcut and click the "Finish" button.

Now whenever you want to shut down, just click on this shortcut and you're done. Also, if you want to make life better and faster, you can right-click the new shortcut you just made, go to Properties, and type in X (or whatever letter) in the Shortcut Key box.