When I tell Windows to shutdown, it takes about 2 miniutes until I see the "logging off" shown on the blue shutdown screen. Windows just sits there without shutting down, and no application will run because it says that the workstation is in the process of being shut down. I know that this is caused by my Nvidia driver for my Geforce4 440 MX, but I was wondering if there is a way to speed up the shutdown process without removing my driver for my video card?

http://www.xtremepccentral.com/forums/archive/39/2002/04/4/1003 Start Regedit. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control. Click on the "Control" Folder. Select "WaitToKillServiceTimeout" Right click on it and select Modify. Set it a value lower than 20000 ( can go down to 200 )

I have the same videocard and the drivers should not cause this problem. You may want to uninstall the drivers, reboot, and reinstall the driver again. If your are running the 52.16 drivers you may also want to consider going back to 45.23 drivers. The 52.16's have caused problems for myself and others. Sandman

OK, I have reduced the WaitToKillServiceTimeout" to 200ms, but it seems that it only reduced the lag time to 1:26. Sandman, You are correct, I am running the 52.16 drivers. I think I will downgrade back to the 45.23 drivers.

Also , if you clear the pagefile at shutdown . Note: Please note on systems with large amounts of memory, and therefore large swap-file, this tweak could cause a delay at shutdown due to the additional time taken to clear the data from the file. Clear the Page File at System Shutdown (Windows NT/2000/XP) http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/244/ http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2003/2003-02-27.htm Windows does not normally clear or recreate the page file. On a heavily used system this can be both a security threat and performance drop. Enabling this setting will cause Windows to clear the page file whenever the system is shutdown.

I am aware that clearing the pagefile does extend the shutdown time, but the ptoblem is with the duration of time that occurs between selecting shutdown, and the actual shutdown process beginning. The page file is not cleared at this stage, it is cleared when the shutdown screen reads "Windows is now shutting down". The time to empty my paging file only takes 20 seconds, so even if it were doing it when it was not supposed to, (immediatly after selecting shutdown, but before the process begins), it would still not account for the other 70 seconds of lapse during the shutdown process. I will try going back to the Nvidia 45.33.2.1 drivers, and hopefully this will resolve my issue.