Having Windows XP Slow Shutdown Problems?

Having Windows XP Slow Shutdown Problems?

Source of Article; http://www.windowsxpslowstartup.how-do-you-do.info/

Have a Windows XP slow shutdown problem? Waiting to go to bed and you want to make sure your PC powers down? Maybe you are just waiting for it to reboot.  it may take more time to complete the shutdown process. So what is is causing this Windows XP slow shutdown problem? A slow shutdown can be caused for a number of reasons. One thing that can cause this is the Windows XP page file.

By default Windows XP when shutting down goes through a process of clearing the page file. This page file is commonly called "virtual memory" and is used to swap pages of "real" memory to this "virtual memory" that resides on your hard disk. The smaller you real memory is (ram) the higher the memory swapping activity. Although this in itself will not cause the Windows XP slow shutdown problem it tends to make the running of programs slow during normal running. During the shutdown though it takes time to clear all the Virtual Memory as being on disk the access to it is slower than real memory. Unfortunately the clearing of virtual memory option is usually set by default.

So why is this so? Well for some reason Microsoft for some reason seemed to think that a large proportion of people buying a PC with Windows XP installed are going to run other operating systems as well as Windows XP (e.g. Linux etc.). This meant that a virtual memory that is not cleared can cause problems when switching between operating systems. Considering that only a very small proportion of users would be doing this you wonder why this option was enabled rather than disabled by default.

As I mentioned this option is enabled, it causes the system pagefile to be cleared upon a clean shutdown. This takes considerable time for the Windows XP operating system to flush out the pagefiles, thus causing your Windows XP slow shutdown problem. Fortunately can turn this option off and improve shutdown times. At the same time if you just happen to be one of those people who does run multiple operating systems then the cache still remains intact and accessible for the other operating system.

So let me show you how to turn this option off. You have to use the registry editor to do this.

1. Start the registry editor by clicking on "Start" then on "Run"
2. Type in the run box "Regedit" then click "OK"
3. First perform a save of the registry by clicking on "File" then "Export" and save a copy of the whole registry. (Just in case you have to copy it back)
4. Click on the "+" sign next to the following folders "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE" then "SYSTEM".
5. Under this folder click on the  "+" sign next to the following "CurrentControlSet" then "Control" then "Session Manager" and lastly click on the folder icon labeled "Memory Management"
6. Under the "Memory Management" folder look for the key called "ClearPageFileAtShutdown" If the value is already set to "0" then you have nothing to do. Your Windows XP slow shutdown problem is not this. Just exit the Regedit editor.
7. If it is set to "1" then right click on the key and click on "modify"
8. Change the  "Value Data" to "0" then click "OK"

And that's it! Well for you it may be.

Not quite, if you are having a Windows XP slow shutdown problem and you have Windows XP Professional installed then you are lucky. You do not have to go through all the above heavy stuff. (I guess they have to give you something for all that extra dosh you paid out) You can turn off virtual memory clearing as follows:

1. Click on "Start" then "Run".
2. Type in "secpol.msc" in the run box then "OK".
3. Click on the "Security Options" folder.
4. In the right panel look for the policy called "Shutdown:Clear virtual memory pagefile" and double left click on it.
5. In the box that pops up left click on the "disabled" button then "OK".

That's all, don't you wish you had Windows XP Professional.

To conclude, there are many other things that can cause Windows XP slow shutdown problems. Many of the fixes suggested for the Windows XP slow startup problem can also be applied. (Cleanup disk, defragment etc). These are explained elsewhere on this website.

Source of Article; http://www.windowsxpslowstartup.how-do-you-do.info/