Internet Technology Blog: Windows 7, Vista ShutDown Faster!

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Windows 7, Vista ShutDown Faster!

You may be facing a problem with bootup and shutdown, if you’re using Win XP or Vista. Well, Windows 7 boasts an increase in performance in both these areas, but I found trouble with shutdown speed. The bootup speed is good, compared to XP or Vista.

So here are the tweaks for faster shutdown of Windows 7. [Warning: I applied these tweaks on my PC, and had no problem, but for your computer apply at your own risk]

1. Do not clear the pagefile at shutdown.

Open the regedit tool. Start ---> type “regedit” in the search box.

Navigate to, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet\ Control\ Session Manager\ Memory Management.
In the right pane search for ;

Data Type or Type: REG_DWORD

Value Name or Name: ClearPageFileAtShutdown

Value Data or Data: [0 = Clear Page File Disabled / 1 = Clear Page File Enabled]

(Enter ‘0’ if you want faster shutdown).

If this entry is not there, create one.

This tweak, reduced my shutdown time from 1.5 min to .15 secs. Ooops! Isn’t that real fast. Want to know the full configuration of my computer. Check this article of my blog. uTorrent 1.8.2- Optimum Speed. Mine is Intel Pentium D 2.66 Ghz, D101 GGC motherboard, 1.5 GB DDR1 ram, 120 GB hard disk.

2. Reduce the waiting time to kill a service.

In the regedit tool, navigate to, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SYSTEM / CurrentControlSet / Control.

Select "WaitToKillServiceTimeout" on the right pane.

Right click on it and select Modify. The default value is 20000. Setting it to a lower 4 digit value, (say 5000) will make your PC shutdown faster, but you could end up losing data, so use this tweak judiciously.