Hang on "Windows is shutting down..." over 24 hours

[Guest]

Can I safely unplug my PC when the "windows is shutting down..." message has
been displayed for over 24 hours? I've had several costly, not to mention
lengthy periods of unavailability for disk drive restorations, repair shop
visits when I prematurely unplugged the machine and my registry got
corrupted. Can I be certain the registry has already been saved when the
'shutting down' message is displayed? I suspect once the shutdown process has
gotten passed the 'saving settings' message this is true. Please advise.

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

Can I safely unplug my PC when the "windows is shutting down..."
message has been displayed for over 24 hours? I've had several
costly, not to mention lengthy periods of unavailability for disk
drive restorations, repair shop visits when I prematurely unplugged
the machine and my registry got corrupted. Can I be certain the
registry has already been saved when the 'shutting down' message is
displayed? I suspect once the shutdown process has gotten passed the
'saving settings' message this is true. Please advise.

Safely? No, not really. You need to find the cause of the problem,
ultimately. Event logs are a good place to start.

 

[Thee Chicago Wolf]

Can I safely unplug my PC when the "windows is shutting down..." message has

been displayed for over 24 hours? I've had several costly, not to mention
lengthy periods of unavailability for disk drive restorations, repair shop
visits when I prematurely unplugged the machine and my registry got
corrupted. Can I be certain the registry has already been saved when the
'shutting down' message is displayed? I suspect once the shutdown process has
gotten passed the 'saving settings' message this is true. Please advise.

Unplug no, hold down the power button for about 5 seconds or until the
system powers off, yes.

- Thee Chicago Wolf

 

[Guest]

In previous occurrences I have tried to find the cause. Both the System and
Application event logs have hinted at but never definitively identified the
culprit(s), possibly McAfee and Musicmatch Jukebox which I have not
reinstalled, but I reiterate my original question. Once the shut down process
has reached the "shutting down..." point has the registry already been saved?
In the similar, previous "problem" situations the shut down process never got
this far AND after pulling the power plug and attempting to restart every
attempt to reboot resulted in a dreaded blue screen and the OS and
applications had to be reinstalled from scratch and all data (music,
pictures, videos, documents) recovered from an external back-up drive. Those
processes are beyond my technical capability. I want to know if I can
reasonably expect to be able to restart the machine without getting the blue
screen caused by a corrupted registry. This problem occurrence started
following an automatic Windows update and it's not the first time, either.

 

[Thee Chicago Wolf]

In previous occurrences I have tried to find the cause. Both the System and

Application event logs have hinted at but never definitively identified the
culprit(s), possibly McAfee and Musicmatch Jukebox which I have not
reinstalled, but I reiterate my original question. Once the shut down process
has reached the "shutting down..." point has the registry already been saved?
In the similar, previous "problem" situations the shut down process never got
this far AND after pulling the power plug and attempting to restart every
attempt to reboot resulted in a dreaded blue screen and the OS and
applications had to be reinstalled from scratch and all data (music,
pictures, videos, documents) recovered from an external back-up drive. Those
processes are beyond my technical capability. I want to know if I can
reasonably expect to be able to restart the machine without getting the blue
screen caused by a corrupted registry. This problem occurrence started
following an automatic Windows update and it's not the first time, either.

This is usually caused by some app that doesn't want to shut down or
release a part of the registry to which the logged-in user profile is
using. There are some VERY easy fixes for the problem.

- Thee Chicago Wolf

 

[Guest]

This is usually caused by some app that doesn't want to shut down or
release a part of the registry to which the logged-in user profile is
using. There are some VERY easy fixes for the problem.

- Thee Chicago Wolf

 

[Guest]

Thanks. Can you tell me or provide links to these EASY fixes?

 

[Thee Chicago Wolf]

Thanks. Can you tell me or provide links to these EASY fixes?

I'll do better. Here's a repost of instructions I've posted before:

Here's a couple of less tweaks to make shutdown fast. You have
to be comfortable with editing the registry a bit to make the
following tips work. They're not going to hose your system and are
reversible. Grab a pen and paper to write down your settings as you
go.

Here goes:

Go to Start > Run and type REGEDIT and press OK. This fires up the
registry editor.

Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop. Edit the
following keys:

1) AutoEndTasks: Default is 0, make it 1

2) ForegroundLockTimeout: Default is 20000, make it 0

3) HungAppTimeoutefault is 5000, try 1000, if it's still slow, try
500. I don't suggest going anything lower than 250 though as it could
really make programs / services that need a moment or two to end
act...funny.

4) WaitToKillAppTimeout: Default is 20000, try 1000, if it's still
slow, try 500. I don't suggest going anything lower than 250 though as
it could really make programs / services that need a moment or two to
end act...funny.

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control

1) WaitToKillServiceTimeout: Default is 20000, try 2000. I don't use
this setting personally and it's questionable whether XP supports it
or not.

When you finish, reboot. Log into XP and then do a shutdown and see
how long it takes.

If some of the keys above don't exists, just create them using the
right mouse button and create them yourself.

#1 is a String Value
#2 is DWORD value
#3 is a String value
#4 is a String value

Good luck.

- Thee Chicago Wolf

 

[Elmo]

Thanks. Can you tell me or provide links to these EASY fixes?

Run msconfig, disable all items under the startup tab. If it starts ok,
re-enable some of the items in Startup till you narrow down the program
that's closing badly. Once you discover the offending program, either
remove, or remove and reinstall.

 

[Guest]

Thanks again. Will do. I am familiar with Regedit. I used to support a server
product that required adding keys to make it run as a windows service. One
final question, though, before I rate your assistance positively, can you
verify my belief that the registry has been saved PRIOR TO the "WIndows is
shutting down..." message displays? I still haven't done the power off you
recommended fearful that the machine won't restart successfully - based on my
past multiple negative experiences.

 

[Guest]

Thanks "Elmo" Joe. I already read something on that topic this morning. I
read both RealPlayer and Quicktime are notorious for causing slow shutdowns,
both are installed and neither is necessary at startup. In fact, I use them,
but only rarely. Likewise I'll find other other similar resource hogs, but
thanks again for suggesting.

 

[WaIIy]

I'll do better. Here's a repost of instructions I've posted before:

Here's a couple of less tweaks to make shutdown fast. You have
to be comfortable with editing the registry a bit to make the
following tips work. They're not going to hose your system and are
reversible. Grab a pen and paper to write down your settings as you
go.

Here goes:

Go to Start > Run and type REGEDIT and press OK. This fires up the
registry editor.

Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop. Edit the
following keys:

1) AutoEndTasks: Default is 0, make it 1

2) ForegroundLockTimeout: Default is 20000, make it 0

3) HungAppTimeoutefault is 5000, try 1000, if it's still slow, try
500. I don't suggest going anything lower than 250 though as it could
really make programs / services that need a moment or two to end
act...funny.

4) WaitToKillAppTimeout: Default is 20000, try 1000, if it's still
slow, try 500. I don't suggest going anything lower than 250 though as
it could really make programs / services that need a moment or two to
end act...funny.

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control

1) WaitToKillServiceTimeout: Default is 20000, try 2000. I don't use
this setting personally and it's questionable whether XP supports it
or not.

When you finish, reboot. Log into XP and then do a shutdown and see
how long it takes.

If some of the keys above don't exists, just create them using the
right mouse button and create them yourself.

#1 is a String Value
#2 is DWORD value
#3 is a String value
#4 is a String value

Good luck.

- Thee Chicago Wolf

Also - get this --

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...6D-8912-4E18-B570-42470E2F3582&displaylang=en

 

[Thee Chicago Wolf]

Also - get this --

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...6D-8912-4E18-B570-42470E2F3582&displaylang=en

I usually advise against the UPHC tool since it installs a service
that runs in the background and EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU SHUT DOWN IT
RUNS. I've personally tried on stubborn machines that experience the
long shutdowns or freezes at shutdown and it makes 0 difference.
Ideally, I wish the UPHC tool would run a single clean-up and be done.
The fact that it should really be called the User Profile Hive
Continuous Clean-up At Every Shutdown Tool.

- Thee Chicago Wolf

 

[R. McCarty]

Basically it locates any open handles to the Registry and the applications
that are responsible and closes the handles so the Hive can be unloaded.
UPHClean.Exe uses a minimal 1.68 Megabytes of RAM. UPHC can't
help with problematic applications like Norton Home Products that cause
shutdown issues where it's services do not gracefully exit or close in a
proper order. The service has to be persistent, since at every shutdown
it provides the help necessary to close Registry hives held open by 3rd
party applications.

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

I usually advise against the UPHC tool since it installs a service
that runs in the background and EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU SHUT DOWN IT
RUNS. I've personally tried on stubborn machines that experience the
long shutdowns or freezes at shutdown and it makes 0 difference.
Ideally, I wish the UPHC tool would run a single clean-up and be done.
The fact that it should really be called the User Profile Hive
Continuous Clean-up At Every Shutdown Tool.

- Thee Chicago Wolf

I use the UPHC on every single PC I support and have never had a problem
with it at all. It's made a lot of problems go away, actually.

 

[WaIIy]

I usually advise against the UPHC tool since it installs a service
that runs in the background and EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU SHUT DOWN IT
RUNS. I've personally tried on stubborn machines that experience the
long shutdowns or freezes at shutdown and it makes 0 difference.
Ideally, I wish the UPHC tool would run a single clean-up and be done.
The fact that it should really be called the User Profile Hive
Continuous Clean-up At Every Shutdown Tool.

- Thee Chicago Wolf

I like your description, pretty funny.

I was getting errors in Event Viewer regarding hive blah blah and this
helps me.
My shutdown is very fast anyway and didn't notice if UPHC made a
difference, but the error is gone.

It uses 1,436 K, so it's not much on resources.

 

[Thee Chicago Wolf]

I like your description, pretty funny.

I was getting errors in Event Viewer regarding hive blah blah and this
helps me.
My shutdown is very fast anyway and didn't notice if UPHC made a
difference, but the error is gone.

It uses 1,436 K, so it's not much on resources.

It's supposed to do what it does best on the computers of people
who've loaded TONS of applications or have gobs of things running in
the background. Registry hacks work more effectively for people who've
got a fairly lean PC than those with innumerable apps clogging up the
OS. Cheers.

- Thee Chicago Wolf

 

[Guest]

I powered off, restarted, made the registry changes and disabled automatic
startup of RealPlayer, Quicktime, iTunes and Adobe Reader - all only need to
be running when viewing/listening, not at startup - and I intend to wait and
see the results over time before considering the UPHC utility. Thanks, again.