Dave, when I select to restart or shutdown my computer it takes approx 2 to 2.5 min for the window “Saving your settings” to close and then another 15 sec for the window ” Windows is shutting down: to close. It also takes approx 2.5 to 3 min for the computer to boot and load. I have an HP Pavilion, WinXP SP2 w/all updates, Pentium 4 1.6Ghz, 1024Mb SDRAM, 80GB Hard Drive
I can’t figure out why it takes so long for it to restart, shut down and start up. I have ran adaware, spybot search & destroy, cw shredder and avg anti-virus with no problems found. Any help or info will be greatly appreciated.
Dave’s Answer:
It is very difficult to answer this question without knowing what kind of software that you generally have running in the background. Windows XP, like other Windows systems before it, is a resource hog, and even systems with piles of RAM have difficulty getting it up to speed very quickly. According to Microsoft, Windows XP was designed to boot from off to a “usable state” within about 30 seconds. This is fine as long as you don’t have anything running in the background. If you have various programs like a third-party firewall, antivirus software, a couple of instant messaging programs, an extra mouse driver, background CD writing software, Creative media server, and Microsoft or Open Office “quickstart” modules (to give you an example of what is on my machine when it boots), you are looking at a shift from 30 seconds to up to two minutes.
There are a number of programs, including different user programs as well as some drivers, that can lengthen startup and shutdown times when installed. For example, a friend of mine had a laptop whose boot time lagged to about three minutes after a particular Windows “hotfix” was installed. Another patch released soon after solved this problem. SP2 has greatly increased security over XP and XP SP1, but at a cost of taking somewhat longer to boot. OpenOffice? support noted a difficulty with a Windows service (program that runs in the background) called “NVidia display helper” which causes longer shutdown times in conjunction with the OpenOffice? quickstart (and some other programs that I don’t remember). Antivirus programs (such as AVG) can offer adequate protection but do slow down your system to varying degrees; I noticed significant lag when I used AVG for a period.
The short version is that a number of programs may be interacting with each other such that bootup and shutdown times are lengthened. I like the setup of my computer, security-wise, even though the bootup time can be about two minutes (shutdown is not so bad). I personally get around this by using the Hibernate function on my computers a lot, and only “really” restarting them every few days. That is another advantage of XP; while Windows 98 became unstable after being “up” for more than 72 hours, XP can hibernate and wake up for significant periods of time without problems.
Long wait times at the “Saving your settings” screen when logging off is typically indicative of an application does not properly release resources when closing, and hence causes your machine to wait and eventually time out. See this Microsoft Knowledge Base article for information on troubleshooting this specific problem can be found at Microsoft.
Another possibility is that this may be pointing to a problem with the user profile hive. Here’s the description from Microsoft about the symptoms of a UPH glitch:
WHAT DOES THE USER SEE? WHAT HAPPENS TO THE PROFILE?
Windows NT4: The system gives up immediately on failure to unload the profile and the (roaming) profile is not reconciled.
Windows 2000: The system attempts to unload the profile 60 times at 1 second intervals. This retry logic rarely helps so in most cases after 60 seconds of the user waiting at the Saving Settings message box the system gives up and roaming profiles are not reconciled. The number of retries can be changed to allow the user to log off faster (this can be done using the policy under Computer Configuration, Administrative Template, System, User Profiles, Maximum retries to unload and update user profile)
Windows XP and 2003: The profile is reconciled using a copy of the contents of the registry. The user is not made to wait as in Windows 2000. The problem left is that the computer cannot recover the memory the profile uses until it can be unloaded.
Also in some cases (e.g. using anonymous logons) you may find that you cannot log on if the profile cannot be unloaded.
Microsoft has provided a tool to assist with this can be found on their Web site.
Hopefully one of these will get your PC back to a healthy state!
Incoming search terms for the article:
Similar articles
- Shutdown is very slow
Shutdown is very slow – Windows XP Published : June 27, 2004 Symptom When you shutdown your Windows XP computer, it may take more time to complete the shutdown process. Slow shutdowns are caused by a number of factors. One of the common cause is the Clear Pagefile at Shutdown option enabled. Virtual memory
... - How to Speed Up Boot Times with Microsoft’s BootVis Utility
This short how-to will walk you through the simple steps necessary to use Microsoft’s BootVis Utility to speed up your computer’s overall boot time. I ran the utility on my Windows XP computer and saw a 40% increase in boot time performance, I went from booting up in 41 seconds to booting up in 25
... - Fix A Slow Windows Shutdown
Introduction To Slow Windows Shutdown Nothing can be more annoying than shutting your PC down and waiting 5-10 minutes for it to shut off. This can be extremely aggrevating especially since most individuals HATE waiting longer than 30 seconds for anything! This article will discuss how you can get your PC shutting down much faster
... - Windows XP Shutdown too slow, fix it to shutdown instantly
The problem of slow or delayed shutdown is very commonly faced by most of the windows XP users. If you are using windows XP for a long time, you are more likely to have such problem. Why Slow shutdown? In Windows XP certain registry keys are responsible for determining how long windows will wait before
... - How to Make Your Computer Boot Faster
Why can’t a computer be more like a television? When you push the power button on a TV, it just turns on. Computers, on the other hand, boot—as in, they take so long to get started that you want to stick your boot into them. You would think that the
...
To shutdown instantly, there is a very simple solution.
P.S. Keep up the great work.
Umm… Well I seem to be having the same problem as most on this
page – slow boot and shutdown times. My situation is different
however, because when I first bought my toshiba sattelite P100
series notebook, everything was fine including quick startup and
shutdown. Over a short period of time the computer drastically
slowed down, most noticeably on boot (sits for a long time at the
black screen with the windows logo), but during the operation of XP
as well. I repaired the registry, searched for spyware, bla bla,
same stuff anyone would do in my case, but no change occured.
Eventually I decided to “restore” the system with a CD toshiba
included when I bought the computer. Not wanting to remove all
partitions (I had linux installed on 1) I decided to only restore
drive C:. I figured it should solve the problem because that is the
system’s logical drive. It didn’t though, and windows remains slow.
I am quite confused, but I still don’t want to completely redo the
whole computer and destroy all partitions. Any advice?
1. Do you think it is the hard drive problem? I have Brand new
WD hard drive. I can change it if it is because of Hard
drive.
2. or is it power problem ?
3. is it software problem or memory ?
what should I do ?
But some day’s now i facing problem in starup on PC and
Shutdown. IT takes a about 5 minutes to take a restart.
>>and only “really” restarting them every few days. That
is another advantage of XP; while Windows 98 became unstable after
being “up” for more than 72 hours, XP can hibernate and wake up for
significant periods of time without problems.
Any suggestion you can make to help resolve this outstanding
slow boot issue will be much appreciated. Looking forward to you
answer, and thank you so much for your support.
I researched until I was blue in the face with the XP long shutdown
issue. I found after 6 months of playing around that it was a
driver for the network card that I have. I can,t tell you exactly
how I found it, or that MS support was any help, but removing the
card fixed the problem imeadiatly.
I have XP Pro with a NetGear ethernet card. When talking to NetGear
on the phone for about an hour, I discovered they have no drivers
at all for the 64 Bit OS’s. Check all of your Network Interfaces
and Drivers.
Fred
Steve, I would check for spyware, viruses and any sort of “disk
save” utility that might be checkpointing your filesystem as you
shut down (Norton Utilities, for example).
Then I discovered that the newer regedit.exe was put on my
computer when I TRIED TO INSTALL: Service Pack 3 -(it had the same
date and time so I figured that it had to be it). Also it was in:
C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download\…(long string of numbers
and letters).
I have a problem with my PC shutting down – it is an AMD 2700 /
1.5Gb PC 2700 RAM – Often takes 5 minutes to switch off completely
and about three minutes to come to life – HELP !!
whenever i swith on my system starting 5min very slow
I have the same problem as a few people here. The computer gets
to “Windows is Shutting Down…”, then, nothing. I have Windows
XP.
It’s also known that Symantec’s product, especially Norton
Utilities & AntiVirus, cause an extreme slowdown in boot time,
so there are probably a lot more that I just haven’t found yet.
My sister’s PC uses Windows 2000 (I think). When she tries to
open IE she gets an error stating her Windows XP license has been
stolen/hijacked/lost (or something like that) and then asks for her
credit card number to repurchase her Windows XP license. Since she
doesn’t have Win XP she knew it was probably a scam and tried to X
out of the window. When she did this the PC shut down and now does
the same thing each time she boots up and tries to open IE. Any
ideas?
I recently discovered a program on my computer which I did not
install, the program name was “Famliy-Kelogger”, I suspected that
it might be a virus. I made several attemtps to find it and remove
it with no such luck. I downloaded the Trend Micor House Call,
scanned the system and removed the Famliey-Kelogger. After which I
decided to buy Virus software protection, and I ended up
downloading a 90 days free trial of Norton Symantic program. I set
up scanning schedule for my machine for late that night, the next
morning, the scanning action was still runing after several hours
from start, when I attmepted to stop the scanning process I
discovered that every thing was frozen and there was response at
all. So I did a hard reboot on the system but when the system tried
to load Windows XP Pro it took a good 45 min. from seeing Windows
Logot to seeing the “Welcome to Windows”.
I guess you could walk them through MSCONFIG, but there are so
many combinations that someone would end up with more problems.
I originally requested help with the slow shutdown problem. As
suggested, I visited Microsoft and downloaded the uphclean tool and
am happy to report that it has cured my problem. My shutdown time
has returned to normal. I recommed this tool to anyone having slow
shutdown times with the “Saving Files” box displayed. Thanks a
million for the information.
Hi Dave..i hope u can help me with this problem..when i shutdown
or restart my laptop acer aspire 4920g,it gets to the “Windows is
shutting down” then stays there until I press and hold the power
button to force it shutdown…please help…this problem
annoying..
my pc shuts down after 15 minutes on the internet. It happens
all the time.
Can you tell me what the problem could be?
oh this problem is even worse with vista it takes forever to
restart:( i think it also depends of how fast the computer hard
drive is
After getting into the desk top, I uninstalled “Norton Symantic”
and did a check disk on the machine. Now the machine takes 2+
minutes from seeing Windows Logo to seeing Welcome to Windows which
was not the case before installing Norton Symantic.
I did a search for it and discovered that I have (2)
regedit.exe
Hi Dave, I am having a problem with booting my pc. When I power
up I get the post boot screen come up and then it stops after
telling me the CPU information for about 2 mins before displaying
memory information then it load fine from there. I have tried
updating the bios but no good. I am running a P4 2.6HT which I
overclocked to 2.8ghz about 3 months ago but it has been running
fine until now. Any tips would be great thanks.
Hi Dave,
I have just had a machine passed to me to have a look at. It runs
XP and had a memory upgrade a few months ago. The memory is the
same frequency. Since the memory upgrade this machine goes through
post no problem but takes anything up to an hour to boot then a
further half hour for the task bar to load. Shut down is the same.
I have tried running different memory in it and the problem is the
same. Any ideas on this problem would be most welcome.
Cheers.
Charlie
Takes 7 secs to shut down with 15 apps running at the same
time.
My system is restarting. when i am shutting down my system.
can u slove my problem……………
thanq
Takes a whopping 29 minutes to shutdown!!
BUT a normal startup time.
Have A21m Thinkpad with Windows 2000 Pro. When Ending Program -
Explorer.EXE I get a message “The program is not responding” and
the only way I can shutdown is by clicking on “End task”. Any ideas
why and troubleshooting tips? Any help appreciated.
stutdown time it appears following
the drive is not ready for use;its door may be open please check
drive A;and make sure that a disk is inserted and that the drive
door is closed
cance try again continue…
next one is stutdown time is also very slow
plz solve my problem
Shutting pc. PC shows that it shuts,screen goes black, but pc
still runs. I have to manually shut it down by holding push button.
Then on start it hangs on booting. I have to try start it many
times. I running Vista Ultimate. Any ideas would be greatly
appreciated. Thank you.
It takes seconds to shut down your computer depending upon how
many applications you are running.
I will write back if it works, if not – I’m going to do the:
User Profile Hive Cleanup service.
My XP machine was not shutting down and the “Ci service” was
reporting errors in the Event Viewers application log. I went into
“Services” and set the cisvc.exe program (Indexing Services) to
“disable” instead of automatic startup type. My XP machine now
shutsdown cleanly instead of “hanging” and the “Windows is shutting
down…” screen.
The site below has some useful speed tweaks all displayed on one
page for quick access.
It is the most useful page for tweaks I have come across.
1) DON’T install service pack 3
2) I tried 3 times and got: Error Access Denied – and it
automatically uninstalled the files it tried to install. But I
guess not really, because I had 2 regedits.
3)I don’t know yet if fixing my regedit will fix the VERY SLOW
shutdown time becaues I wanted to write this first… Here we
gooooooo!!!!!
thx…i try ur solution neutralvisionsgraffix,but still,it hang
at windows shutting down..but it is not hang,i can move my mouse
around….
Dave,
Thanks for your help with a slow start-up issue. It got things
fixed.
Dave, start up can be seriously delayed if Windows if
prefetching the whole world. Go into registry and edit the prefet
section to only fetch the OS files. Or even do no prefetch if you
want. I use a setting of 2 which prefetchs only the OS files.
December 13th, 2006
Maybe you can help me? My PC take a long time to shut down..
Sometimes I have to do, Start, and Shut Down, 2 or 3 times. It
seems that certain items or programs, etc, are running in the
background, and maybe if I find them and shut them off, then my
machine will shut down the 1st time like it used to do, just a
short time ago. I am running on Windows XP, Home Edition, Service
Pak 2. I have a question for you, If I go to Start, Run, and
MSConfig, in this Utility Program, next to the Start-up pull down
menu, there is a pull down menu to the left of the start up menu.
My qustion is: If I uncheck a certain box, or boxes, will this
correct my problem? and if this is the correct pull down menu,
which boxes do I uncheck to correct my problem? Looking forward to
your reply,
My E-mail address is:
Any help you could give me would greatly be appreciated.
Well, I wish I had a 5 minute shutdown time.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session
Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters
Start task manager by pressing ctrl + alt + del.
my pc is really slow at loading and closing. I reckon that I
have far too many services running (about 80). Unfortunately I have
no idea which I can disable and which I should leave alone. I went
into msconfig and this is the list. Bugger, wont paste, they are
mainly microsoft based but have some from symantec and adobe. Have
you got any idea how I can send you a list of my services
please?
All of a sudden I ca’t display the fullWrite screen.It ohly
shows bottom half. Can’t pull down the top portion
I have an HP laptop that automatically shuts down during
boot-up. It doesn’t even get as far as the bios screen. It simply
won’t stay on long enough to boot up. Anybody have this problem?
Any helpful suggestions?
when i start my computer it asking to reboot
Dave, when i restart my pc it goes normaly but it shuts down
doesnt restart like u pressed shutdown not restart, so what could
be my problem. pc spec. 3.0 Celeron D.M/B intel 101. 256 ram, 40 Gb
hdd. combo drive. thx
key name EnablePrefetcher
0—Disable
1—Application Launch Prefetch
2—Boot Prefetch
3—Prefetch everything
WHY DOES MY SERVER RESTARTS EVERY FEW MINUTES
my computer takes 10 minutes at the “windows is starting up”
screen to load! i cleaned out all viruses and took off most
programs in startup on msconfig. it dosnt take long for the
programs to load it just takes forever to start up windows
Thanks fixed my problems with XP slow shutdown. If microsoft
verification is an issue you can get the program from
It covers 18 Windows XP Speed Tweaks.
i have a xp os when i used to shut down my pc it became restart
i cant shut down my pc what to do plz help me
“C:\Windows\System32\ctfmon.exe”
“C:\Program Files\Digital Media Reader\Shwiconem.exe”
“RunDLL32.exe” C:\Windows\System32\NvCpl.dll,NvStartup
“Nwiz.exe” /install
ZHotKey.exe
RTHDCPL.exe
ALCMTR.exe
“RunDLL32.exe” C:\Windows\System32\NvMctray.dll,NvTaskBarInit
“C:\Program Files\Webroot\SpySweeper\SpySweeperUI.exe”
“C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\ccAp.exe”
“C:\Program Files\Java\ire1.5.0._11\bin\jusched.exe”
“C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec
Shared\PIF\{B8E1DD85-8582-4C61-B58F-2F227FCA9A08}\PIFSvc.exe” /a/m
“C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec
Shared\PIF\{B8E1DD85-8582-4C61-B58F-2F227FCA9A08}\AlertEng.dll”
C:\Program Files\Bigfix\bigfic.exe
My own XP-Pro system used to take a long time to shut down
compared to my old Windows 98/SE setup.
I searched the internet for Tweaks and speed secrets. These are all
listed in my XP Tweaks as found on my webpage. My XP-Pro system now
shuts down in 8 sec’s flat. (even if I’ve left my dial-up line open
and O.E. running)
I do use AVG, MS-Anti Spyware, Trojan Hunter and Spyware Sweeper,
that run all the time as TSR’s.
I repeat the process of tweaking the registry of all my customers
and I see like results on all systems. I’ve seen several PC’s catch
on fire, so mine gets shut down when I’m not here to watch
it.
God Bless,
Wayne (theShadow)
simply goto you control panel/system/device manager/ide
controller/ right click on primary ide and uninstall…then
reboot…this should work… if your system resources are extremely
high this might not work..and you may have maleware of some
form….but if computer basically runs fine and you get slow
startup/shutdown/glitchymouse/and glitchy video…try thhis
trick..im no expert but this is a fix i ran accross and it
worked!!! after 11 days of extreme searching -=) good luck and i
hope this helped
I have a new machine with intel915GLV, 40GB,512 DDR Ram with
window 2000 server.
So I copied the older regedit.exe that was in: C:I386 and put it
in: C:\Windows
Hello Dave,
I have Dell Core 2 Duo E6550 and 3GB memory. It is running on Vista
32bit.
My pc is pretty fast when I get it. Then, I got the virus. I tried
to restore my pc, but the virus still has in my pc. So, I tried to
format my pc to factory image setting by pressing F8.
Now, it take a long time to boot my computer. Actually it takes 30
mins to boot. I saw the DELL SCREEN Page like 30 min (in this page,
F2= Setup,F12= boot menu).I checked my memory. I think my memory is
ok.
Then I thought my vista is something wrong. Therefore, I installed
the fresh Window 7. However, the problem still exists. It takes
30min to boot ( DELL SCREEN PAGE).
Do you think it is a hardware problem or software problem?
I have a Dell Inspiron 530, bought a year ago last February.
Three days ago my power went out briefly. The computer shut down
and rebooted. On reboot, it was extremely slow and hung on the Dell
window for the longest time. Then I saw a brief flash of “AHCI BIOS
is not installed” and then it finally got to the window with the
status bar and hung there a long time. Once it reached my password
window, it was fine and once it’s all booted up it’s fine and runs
with no problem. I’ve always had that black window with the “ADHI
BIOS” thing and it’s never caused a problem before. Now all
consecutive boots take forever. I run several programs on start up,
i.e. Microsoft Security Essentials, Avast antivirus, Malwarebytes.
I’ve always run them and they’ve never made any difference until
now and I’ve only had this start up problem since my power flashed
off the other day. Any help would be appreciated. I don’t know what
to do or even where to start. I’m pretty computer savvy and if the
directions are fairly explicit, I should be able to follow
along.
Another place to look regarding a long shutdown time would be
the local security policy for clearing the virtual memory file upon
shutdown (Administrative Tools, Local Security Policy, Security
Options); if it is enabled it can take a long time to shutdown.
Hi Dave,
I have a problem regarding system restart. While working on my
system Pentium 4 (3.0 Ghz)HT,512 MB RAM, the machine abruptly
Restarts and continuously reboots, (sort of forever loop) till I
Off the power.
Intel d945gcpe :Turn off power reinstall the jumper in normal
mode position
This information really helped me to speed up my shutdown.
I have a Dell lattitude laptop with Windows 2000 running, after
the OS becomes active; within a few minutes it receives an error
and keeps restarting. Any troubleshooting ideas?
Hi Dave,
I’m having Toshiba(laptop) Satallite U205-S5034. Genuine Windows XP
Media Center Edition, Intel Core^TM2 Duo Processor T5200, 1024MB
DDR2 SDRAM,100GB 5400pm HDD,DVD SuperMulti(+/-R double layer)
drive, 12.1″TruBrite^TM widescreen (WXGA) display,802.11a/b/g
wireless, Fingerprint Reader.It was having a lot of viruses, so I
use Symatec Endpoint Protection & Maleware to scan & delete
the viruses. After scanig for viruses, it ask me to restart, &
then I restrat my laptop. But it took 1hr to log off. I need u to
help me solve this problem, please.
Bless!!
I formated a hdd and installed xp sp2 on a dell p4 and later
returned the hard disk to its original processor which was a del
p3.
on boot of the p3 it always displayed the dos screen displayed when
f8 is pressed during booting and choose to start windows normaly,
when i press enter only the progress bar is displayed to completion
and the p3 reboots.
this problem keeps on repeating even if i choose to start in safe
mode the p3 hungs after a certain file is loaded and reboots.
Then press ctrl + shut down from the drop down list.
Rubbish! We run Win98 on five different systems here — and for
weeks at a time without rebooting. As you commented earlier in your
article, it depends on what trash you are running (allowing to load
in the background) how fast a system will boot or shut down. Also,
recall your comment about XP being a resource hog.
As to quick shut down I use a work around. Press the three
fingered salute CTRL ALT DEL when the Windows Task Manager comes up
select Shutdown from the top row of tabs then while holding down
CTRL click on Shutdown in the menu and the machine stops almost
immediately. I do recommend using the correct shutdown procedure
every so often though.
My HP laptop Pentium 4 Win XP Pro Media Center Edition Ver.2002
Service Pack 2 – 3.40 GHz 2.00 GB Ram. 7.5K RPM 150GB HD.
Windows XP Professonal 64Bit Edition…slow shut downs, I notice
sometimes apps not closing and freezing, cursor can move, and only
logging off then shutting down allows a fast shutdown.
see the article at for details on exactly what
prefetch does and how to edit the registry.
my computer simply wont shut down or restart…it gets to the
“Windows is shutting down…” then stays there until I manually
turn it off (press and hold the power button) I use windows XP, and
run the following on startup:
I too have a serious problem every time i try to boot my laptop
it just restarts immediately it starting to load win xp,showing a
blue screen, and the system just restarts and restarts. I made,
originally a recovery disk… but cannot get that recovery page to
appear, no matter which option I choose at that Windows Advanced
Options Menu, the system just restarts… cant get into safe mode
cant do any thing.even trying to reinstalling systems software is
failing coz its restarting… please help me out with this one
Hi,
I have a Dell SmartStep 250N computer. The problem I have is that
the computer automatically shuts down 10 minutes after it is turned
on. If I turn it back on immediately, it works well without
shutting down. I have read all about the overheating problems with
this model, my question is why does my computer shudown so early,
and is my problem an overheating problem?
I googled “how to speed up shutdown time” and one of the many
fixes was to go to the “RUN” -> regedit.exe but I found that it
wouldn’t pull up.
Charlie, I don’t need to tell you that’s an extraordinarily long
time to wait. I’d try reinstalling Windows and see what happens, I
just wonder if it’s a preponderance of spyware or something…
I HAVE A PROBLEM MY PC DIDN’T BOOT UP SOME TIMES AND THE SCREEN
STILL BLACK AND I MUST PUSH THE RESTART BUTOON TO OPEN IT
my pc windows xp and when i restart my pc using reset button i
got the message as turnoff power and reinstall the jumper in normal
mode position. why it is coming. what problem.
I had the same problem after installing a couple of SATA drives.
I knew that I should increase the Power Supply, which I did. I
replaced the 350 watt with an Antec TrueBlue 2.0 480 watt. I am
back to a speedy bootup, restart and shutdown.
win xp startup time my restaring after the xp booting screen
,and I can’t repair my xp using my win xp cd .in the installation
screen c drive format is unknown( no fat/ntfs). what can i do.
1. Remove/Replace Windows Background image
2. Edit Boot.ini to disable GUI boot
3. Disk Cleanup
4. Disk Defragmenter
5. Visual Performance
6. Windows Explorer Performance
7. Applications Autorunning on Startup
8. Cleaning the Windows Registry
9. Remove viruses, trojans and spyware
10. Apply Windows updates
11. Disable performance counters
12. Optimize your internet connection
13. Remove windows fonts
14. Disabling indexing service
15. Turning off system restore
16. Speed up boot sequence
17. Disable unnecessary services
18. Setting manual IP addresses