Reducing the Wait Time

When you start to shut down Windows XP, it has to quit, or "kill," any live appl ications or processes that are currently running. So close all applications first. However, some appl ications and processes are always running in the background. You can reduce the amount of time that Win dows XP waits for those applications and processes to close before Windows XP kills them. 1. Open registry editor 2. Navigate to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop. Set the WaitToKillAppT imeout and set the value to 1000. Select the HungAppTimeout\newline value and set it to 1000 as well. 3. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control. Select the W aitToKillServiceTimeout value and set it to 10000. 4. Close the Registry Editor. Note: For modification involves registry, you can modify the registry value by u sing Registry Editor, which can be started by typing regedit in Start -> Run box, or by pressing Windows + R buttons. Reduce the wait time for services to be killed As mentioned above, Windows will wait for the services to shutdown and kill them selves after notifying the running services to shut down. If not, Windows will w ait for the timeout and start killing the still running services. You can reduce the wait time for Windows to kill the persistent services. Navigate to the following registry branch: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control On the right pane, double click on WaitToKillServiceTimeout or right click on it a nd choose modify. Change the default value of WaitToKillServiceTimeout of 20000 to lesser value, such as 5000 or even 1000, depending on your preference. When the value of WaitToKillServiceTimeout expires, the system notifies the user that the service has not stopped, and prompt the user with option to force the service task to stop or continue to wait. Reduce the wait time for user processes and applications to be killed As with services, Windows will also wait for a while, depending on WaitToKillApp Timeout setting, before starting to shut down and kill open applications and use r processes when the user want to shutdown, restart or log off. The wait time or time out can be reduced to speed up the shutdown process. Navigate to the following registry branch: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop On the right pane, double click on WaitToKillAppTimeout (or right click on the r

egistry key and select Modify), and enter a new value which is less than the def ault value of 20000. The value can be 1000 or 5000 or any other numeric value, d epending on your preference. When the WaitToKillAppTimeout registry entry timeou t or expires, the End Task dialog box appears, stating that the process did not respond, and allowing user to End the task. On the right pane also, double click on HungAppTimeout (or right click on the re gistry key and select Modify) and change the value to less numerical value than 5000 (default value), e.g. 1000. HungAppTimeout specifies how long the system wa its for user processes to end after the user clicks the End Task command button in Task Manager or after the user has selected to restart or shutdown the system . Then navigate to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop\ registry branch, and do the same as above to change and modify the value of WaitToKillAppTimeout and HungAppTimeout registry keys. Automatically end, terminate and kill user processes or tasks on shutdown or log off Even if you have set the HungAppTimeout registry entry to a very low value, what happen is that when HungAppTimeout time out due to a hung applications or unabl e to terminate tasks or not responding to the end task request, it will prompt u ser with a End Task dialog box to ask if user wish to end the process. By changi ng to the value of registry key AutoEndTasks to 1, we can ask Windows to end all processes that timeout when shut down or log out from Windows automatically, wi thout asking for user input or interaction. Default value of the key is 0, which mean no user processes will end automatically. AutoEndTasks is located at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop registry bran ch.

Reduce wait time after XP boots If your computer is not attached to a home network: - Right click on my computer and select manage. - Expand services and applications and select services to open the services wind ow. - Highlight the workstation service, right click and select properties. - Set the startup type dropdown box to disabled. Click ok. Note that you will need to re-enable the workstation service should you wish to network your PC in the future. If your computer is part of a home network: Go to start\control panel\network and internet connections\network connections. - Right click your current network connection (should be local area connection u nless you have more than one network adaptor) and select properties. - Uncheck the File and Print Sharing box and press ok. Note that this will disable your computer s ability to share files and printers ov

er the network, though it should not affect your ability to access such resource s on another system.