Slow PC Shutdown

Running xp sp3, fully updated, no other real time protection.
Freshly installed ESS v4.0.424.0 with all updates.

When shutting down, windows stalls for about 15 secs at 'Saving user settings...'

This coincides with this report from EventViewer:

Removing ESS solves the slow shutdown.
(note: I have UPHclean installed, so obviously that doesn't help)

 

In such case, we strongly recommend excluding ekrn.exe from UPHC per the instructions in the readme file supplied with the UPHC installer.

 

I might be wrong (strongly doubt it) but the Event/Application log entry of the Userenv Warning is because of EGUI.EXE and not EKRN.EXE.

When I was using the earlier ESS 4.0 builds (.314 and .417) with my experiments as to the probable cause of the Application popup I would manually kill the EGUI.EXE process just before shutdown (logoff). That did actually keep the Application popup from occuring. However, that manually killing of the EGUI.EXE process produced the same entry in the Event/Application log as stackz.

Even now, with the new .424 build installed, (I no longer get the Application popup ) I get the same Event/Application log entry as stackz.

I don't even bother using the Microsoft Hive Cleaner for something so insignificant. To me it's just a small "wild hair" that ESET hasn't quite got worked out yet. Maybe needs a little "combing" LOL.

 

Actually upon further investigation I found that UPHclean does kick in with:

I tried to get the callstack using UPHC but nothing was logged.
Adding ekrn.exe to the exclusion list made no difference.

Anyway as Darren basically said, it is more of a minor inconvenience and as this is the only problem I have, I'll keep ESS v4 installed.

 

Just an interesting finding I made with this stalling at 'saving your settings', definitely not a work around but it may give ESET something to look at.

If I force terminate the eset service, the SCM restarts it immediately as expected, everything about ESS still works but..... no more slow shutdown.

 

xp sp3

Seems I've traced the cause to ESS Self-defense, disabling it stops the slow shutdown. I'm not recommending it as a solution/work around, but hopefully ESET maybe able to pinpoint the problem and rectify it.

 

I also have the same issue with event ID 1517 using ESET version 424.

This event only started appearing after having installed this version. I have in fact been singing the praises of all earlier versions well knowing that the time it takes to shutdown my PC was so so quick - with the latest version installed it takes in excess of 15 secs with the 'Saving Settings' and before the screen display changes to 'Windows Shutting down'.

On checking the Events of close down UPHClean remaps Windows Defender and Winlogin.exe and occasionally svchost but much the same as others have stated in their own posting to this forum.

I have experimented to see what would happen with any event ID being issued within the Event Viewer after uninstalling ESET... probably as I suspected no event appeared.

What I am not sure about is the safely of the UPHClean doing its bit - I gather from Googling that the actions taken to remap files that could not be released soon enough when closing is what it is intended to do... but that is not the sole solution, I would've thought.

Is it possible just to leave things as they are by repeating the same event without trying to find a solution, and therefor 'ignore' the issue?

Is it the intention of ESET to provide a fix?

Or... just what?

All info would be appreciated.

Kind regards

Kimbo