A lot of people complain about long Vista startup and how annoying it is. But having to wait for ages for Vista to shut down can be equally frustrating. Most likely you will experience this if you’ve been using Vista for a while and run a lot of software. A lot of programs you have installed run different services in the background and the more there are, the more Vista has to close when you turn off your computer. As a result it takes longer to shut down.

There is a feature that lets you view which programs are slowing down your system. To access it go to Control Panel – Performance Information and Tools. Then click on Advanced Tools in the navigation bar. You will get a screen showing you various performance tools. If there are any shutdown issues, a message will be displayed near the top of that screen. Click on it to view which programs are causing problems along with recommendations on how to fix them.

There is a certain Registry tweak that can considerably reduce Vista shutdown time by closing down the services faster. Please be careful to not make any mistakes and remember that if you mess it up and damage your computer, you are the only one responsible for it. And back up the Registry before you begin.

After you’ve backed up the Registry, go to Start and type regedit in the search bar. This will open the Registry editor.  Then go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control. You should see WaitToKillServiceTimeout on the right hand side. Change the value from 20000 milliseconds (20 seconds) to 5000 milliseconds (5 seconds). Don’t choose a lower value, because services need time to shut down properly. This tweak should make your system shutdown faster. Enjoy.