Longer Shutdown in XP

[Kent10]

Hi:

Being the enthusiast I am, I periodically time my shutdown of XP and for weeks it was between 10 and 20 seconds but never more than 20. I noticed it seemed longer lately so I timed it and it is consistently 26-27 seconds. I have tried shutting it down after closing all open programs but I can not get the faster times I was accustomed to. I know it could be a number of things and may be hard to diagnose. I haven't made any major changes to may computer that I can think of. There were some XP security downloads on Jan. 9 but I can't think of anything other than the usual antivirus definitions and things like that. Thanks for any ideas. Kent

[stinger608]

When was the last time you defraged?

[Kent10]

I should have mentioned that I defrag regularly (weekly) and tested the shutdown after a defrag. Thanks.

[TobyRama]

Hi, from my own experience a slower shutdown time was usually a piece of software that I was testing or an update to beta software that's hanging the OS. One time it was a new HP USB printer driver that the OS didn't like and I went back to the old one and it was fine again. I've also had issues with ATI tool or ATI tray tools (from back when I had an X800XL) hanging the system but I found out that it was conflicting with ... the USB printer driver of all things.

Even though you made no big changes sometimes it's a small change like maybe a new AV you're running that's conflicting with something. or just a new video driver that had a mis-install that needs to be reinstalled (after a proper uninstall).

In the rare instances that this has happened to me I go back to my software-OS permissions (limited or admin/account) tweak log as I write each and every change I do in that log and I backtrace until I find the culprit and it's almost always software or a driver.

[Kent10]

Thanks for the ideas. I just can't think of anything else that I changed except for the XP updates and antivirus definitions. There was an update to Flash Player I think. What I could do when I have time is go back and try some older Ghost images that I have and see if I can isolate the problem. It may be a lot of work though. Thanks for your help.

[Kent10]

Quicktime update was another. There probably was something else. I just can't think of it.

[screwballl]

XP updates are notorious for this... I pretty much just leave it be and every 6-12 months I format and reinstall XP

[TobyRama]

No problem -- I also have Acronis images just for that rare borked OS issue that can't be solved. I have seen AV updates have issues but only Norton it seems lol. Norton conflicts with creative sound card drivers sometimes, but I have had a bad Adobe Flash install before and uninstalling and reinstalling fixed it and yes it did hang the OS on shutdown but it was one of those things that I just knew instantly was the culprit (more or less). McAffee site advisor is also known to cause slower shutdown issues.

Some other things to look at might be an app that maybe threw itself into startup that you might not have been aware of like a resident spyware application. Usually only the paid ones will even allow you to do this but maybe you have MS One Care, or Spyware Doctor or something like that? Food for thought anyway sometimes it's worth mentioning several things that could potentially be the culprit. Good luck and at least you always have that image to fall back on

[TobyRama]

Originally Posted by screwballl

XP updates are notorious for this... I pretty much just leave it be and every 6-12 months I format and reinstall XP

Yeah on a very rare occasion I have had and issue with XP updates -- usually it was that the update was conflicting with something else like an outdated version of Java or something and it always seems to be smooth later on when Java, Flash, and video drivers are updated.

[Kent10]

I have checked the startup items in MSCONFIG and I don't see anything unusual there. I do have several that are unchecked so I was planning on seeing if perhaps one of them needs to be checked. So I will have to narrow it down and test. I disabled them to get a faster start up time but didn't consider shut down at the time.