Windows 2000 - Shut down Windows much faster

Are you wondering why Windows 2000 takes half an eternity to shut down the computer after you have clicked on Shut down computer? It's not the hardware that's to blame, as is usually assumed, but rather the services that have been started.

This is due to the fact that certain services settle in the computer's memory and do their work there. However, Win2000 has difficulties in terminating these without any problems and has to force the services out. Unfortunately, this function is only activated after Windows has tried to shut down the services in the conventional way for 20 seconds. If you now set this time period manually, the shutdown will be considerably shorter.
Personally, I've gone from 13 seconds to 2 seconds with this setting. And this is how you can change it:

1. Click one after the other on Start choose Execute. In the command line that appears, enter regedit and confirm with Enter.

2. After the registry editor has opened, double-click through the keys one after the other HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control and double-click on the value in the right-hand pane WaitToKillServiceTimeOut.

3. The number 20000 to be found. It is specified in milliseconds. I recommend a quick way to end the services - namely in 2000 milliseconds! Therefore, change the existing number to a 2000 around. You can set the values lower, but then at your own risk, as some rare computer configurations cannot cope with this value and the computer will no longer boot.

4. There is also another option in the registry to speed up the shutdown by automatically kicking out all tasks during shutdown. Go to the program as described above regedit and navigate through the path HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop.

5. In the right-hand pane you will now see the entry AutoEndTasks on which you must now double-click. A line will appear in which you can 1 enter.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR USERS OF THIS TWEAK
Some users here are almost desperate because the shutdown was not faster but took minutes longer. Now it has been pointed out in the forum that this trick must not be applied or the value ClearPageFileAtShutdown must be 0. As soon as this is the case, Windows shuts down at high speed.

NOTE FOR NEW PUBLICATION: This article was produced by Sandro Villinger and comes from the Windows Tweaks archive, which has been built up since the late 1990s.