Community Newsletter: Q&A forum: Why does my PC take so long to shut down? How to fix it?

Hi Victoria, I did this for a friend of mine on her computer and it straightened things up and made her computer boot much faster. Her computer was freezing on the "saving settings". It is something that, if it doesn't work, you can easily change back.

Remove the Welcome Screen

If you dont want to use "Fast User Switching", you may want to disable the Welcome Screen. You must be logged in as an Administrator to do this. Note:To do this follow the directions below:

1) Click on Start
2) Click on Control Panel
3) Double-click on User Accounts
4) Click on "Change the way users log on or off"
5) Uncheck "Use the Welcome Screen" (note: this will also disable "Fast User Switching")
6) Click on Apply Options
7) Close the User Accounts window and the Control Panel
8) The next time you reboot your computer, the classic login prompt will be used

What if I dont want the Welcome Screen OR the classic prompt? Can I disable both?

To Login automatically to a user account, follow the instructions below:

1) Click on Run
2) Type in the following command and click OK

control userpasswords2

3) Highlight the user you want to log into automatically, then uncheck the box for

"Users must enter a username and password to use this computer"

4) Click on Apply and you'll be asked to verify the username and password to log in automatically
5) Click OK and the next time you restart your computer, you'll automatically be logged in without having the classic prompt or Welcome Screen.

I've also heard that Roxio 5 creates problems. There is a patch on the Roxio site but I haven't had any experience with it.

Hope this helps.

Nanny

There could be several answeres to this, however, I highly suspect this one. At least try this one first, I'm relatively certain it will solve the majority of your problems. In shutting down, you computer must first close all running programs, Then, if your computer is loaded with many hundreds of junk files, it must go through them all also. The more junk you have on it, the longer it takes to shut down.
What is considered junk? It is hundreds and hundreds of files you problably have left on your computer that have built up so large, your computer must go through ALL of them before shutting down so that is what is taking so long.
Junk files are:
1. Temp Files,
2. Internet files,
3. Cookies, etc.
To give you an example. In checking my junk files nightly (and cleaning) just before shutting down, in just one day of surfing the net, you could have as many as 10 MB - in JUST ONE DAY!. I once found I had 59 MB in just one day. Multiply this by say -- 30 days - and you can see why a computer would slow to a crawl to shut down.
I too had this problem before a close friend told me about the two FREE programs that solved my problem. First, let me say my computer was taking as much as a full minute and a half then. The program that I was mentioning that solved my problem completely (And FREE) is "CCCleaner" - Now, I run it every evening before shutting down and my computer now regularly shuts down in 7 seconds. Just make certain you ONLY check the boxes on the left side to delete "Cookies" - "Temp files" and Internet "files", Nothing more.

The other thing that could cause your problem is having your registry files all screwed up. The OTHER FREE program I have been useing for that is "Advanced WindwsCare2 Personal" It will keep your Regisrty clean AND optimized perfectly. very simple and easy to use. BOTH of these programs I have been running for over a year now, and I swear by both of them. By the way, both of these programs are rated highly.
You can find more info on them by Googling them. OH! Almost forgot, I'm running XP Pro. I believe both of these programs are also "Vista" compatible.
Hope this helps.
Good luck,
Ancient-One

Hi Free my poor tired rearend. The ancient one was correct and gave good simple advice. It depends which version you downloaded but there is a personal FREE edition of both ccleaner and Advanced windows care both of which are excellent and do as said.

Cheers

Hello jschneiter. Open up CCleaner and click on options on the left hand side, then click on cookies. You'll get two boxes, "Cookies to Delete" and "Cookies to Save". Just click on the cookie you want to highlight it and then use the arrow keys to move them from one box to another.

HTH

This program is good for the first 10 Log-ins, afer that you have to pay. But it is worth every penny. It can also save all the Log-In info to a file and you can back it up to a CD.

I downloaded both programs suggusted. After running the scan , the programs let you do nothing unless you want to pay for them. Secondly, I had to completely take the programs back off my computer just to get the internet to work correctly.

At least that was the experience I got about 20 minutes ago.

While there is a free version of RegCure available, the free version appears to me not to provide much registry cleaning, with regards to the total amount of problems it claims that it finds during a scan. I found (and have been using) Eusing Free Registry Cleaner. They do encourage a donation but it's not required. It appears you have the full version if you donate or not.

Stahu,
You are right, some register cleaners don't properly look for the folders and applications installed on the hard drive so they think that the path or link on the register is dead causing regcure to delete a live entry and destroying the launch of your application.

CCleaner is Free and well design, I have use it for 3 years and never had a problem.
You can donate anything you want to the application writer but is not forcefully.

In addition, Ccleaner has a section specific to tell it what cookies you want to keep and which one you don't.

In reality the control of cookies, is already within your hands.

IE has a section, under security Tab, right there you can choose which sites you want to allow for cookies, so if a pc cleaner cleans all of your cookies IE already has permission to recreate them when you visit that site again.

The reason why some sites absolutely request cookies to be on is because they want to track you.

I understand that if you purchase online or access a site where you need to log on, it needs to temporarily deposit the cookie.

By you spefying which sites are allowed, you will never have the problem that a cookies is not availabe.

The cookie setting could be set to
Accept - first party cookies
Accept - Third party cookies
Always accept temporari cookies.

Turn all these to Block

And then add the sites you need to the list, that way you are protecting yourself from Tracking cookies, and really from sites that are just forcing it on you.

go to www.iobit.com and look under products if their front webpage is not advertising the free version.
Or Cnet download and seart the name in the download area only.

Word of Warning,
While Advance W Care is simple to use and scans all areas that could potentially be diminishing the speed of your pc.
It tends to be very poor in explaining why it wants to make changes to your pc. In one instance for example, it wanted to delete one of my network settings because there was no entry in it, however when I allowed it, it diminish the speed of my internet connection.

At the end of the scan, you have the option to look at what it will change.
If you decide to proceed with the changes, it makes a backup, this is erroneous, it just makes a restore point.

You have to go into settings to change how many points you would like the applications to save.

But to use this kind of restore points did not work for me.

I am waiting for Ver. 3 which is also free.

My recommendations would be
Ccleaner - to clean and maintan the register
Revo Uninstaller - to unstall applications properly.
and to select or deselect applications that run at startup
Glary's Utilities, also to clean and maintain the register.
Sometimes, not very often Glary will find something Ccleaner missed.

I stope using Adv. W. Care for many problems that cause to my laoptop.
Good luk.

Hello!
I don't know where you downloaded CCleaner, because I can assure you that it IS free!
I've been using it for years, from when it was called "Crap Cleaner" and it does work, and work very well. If I recall correctly, there is a version payable, but I've never used it, the version I use is FREE with a request for "Donations".
So far as a slow shutdown is concerned, I had a similar problem many years ago, and I found out, by accident more than design, that I had an unauthorised entry in my "User Accounts".
I ran AVG Free Rootkits detector (you can Google it) and the problem was solved.
There are also various "startup" programmes, also free, which allow you to switch off, or delay startup of, programmes which would normally start up with your PC, which you probably never use, or only use rarely, and these programmes (like printer - word and others) have to be closed before the PC can shut down. Try the Anti root kit, and download a free delay starter (from R2 Studios for example). Use your "disk cleanup" programme regularly, and try deleting "all but the last backup points" (if your PC is working OK apart from the shutdown problem) - after doing all this, analyze your disk, using "defragmenter" programme, and defragment, if necessary, although it doesn't harm to defrag anyway!
Once it's all done, reboot, and run your AV scan, together with an Spyware detection programme (such as AVG Free which now does both at the same time - and for free.)
After all that - check your C disk for volume/space gained, and - if you've NEVER done this before, be prepared for a wonderful agreeable surprise at the amount of space you've regained....!
I'm anything but a "geek" or "guru" but even I was able to do all of these things with no particular problem!

The CCleaner program is FREE, use the link below and when the website is open click on top right hand conner where it says "Download Latest Version" 2.79MB. It will open another page and "File Download window should pop-up". Then click on save and save it to one of your folders and then open that folder to execute the install program. Or you can just click Run and it will install from the website.

THIS PROGRAM IS 100% FREE AND NO SPAMS.

http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/

Good Luck

Russ

Go to Iobit.com to download the free programs I also swear by these free programs, keeps everything running smoothly.

Look again, cc cleaner and advanced windows care 2 personal are both free.
I've used cc cleaner on two computers one with XP the newer one with Vista.
I just downloaded advanced and ran it, it does a nice job of cleaning everything up.
I then rebooted the system to make sure everything worked before responding to your post

Look again both have a free version and a subscription pay version

I've been using CCleaner for years, and completely agree with the posting. It is indeed freely available from www.ccleaner.com/ and various free download sites. Why do you think it is not free?