[W2K] Really slow "shut down" now

Happy New Year All!

I am hoping someone could shed some light on a recent "shut down" (very slow) problem I am now experiencing with my W2K machine. It was doing fine, and somehow I messed it up, and I am now trying to isolate what I did.

I have SpywareBlaster installed with no prior problems. I also have SpyBot installed with no prior problems. These were all recently updated at the same time along with the following:

I installed MRU-Blaster
I ran regcleaner (jv16 PowerTools - also with no prior problems)
and I ran MS Windows Update and installed all the latest critical patches

I have checked and have no extra programs running, and my "start" file is still the same as before all the updates and upgrades. I am running IE5.5 sp2.

I hope someone really sharp could please help with any suggestions on where to look! My W2K machine now takes 2-3 minutes to "shut down". It 'acts' like it is waiting for some process to "time out" before shutting down.

Thanks in advance!

 

Hi Any Insight,

To start with your first hunch (often the best):

Start > Run > regedit > OK

Go to the key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control.
Select "WaitToKillServiceTimeout"
Right-click it and change the value, lower the value, but not too much at a time. I would suggest you don´t go under 100
See if that helps.

I would like to advise you to always make a backup of your registry before making manual changes.

Regards,

Pieter

 

Hi Pieter_Arntz!

Thank you for your suggestion. Yes, I know better, and made a huge mistake by not backing up the registry before all my upgrade changes. I sure learned my lesson!

I will try changing my "WaitToKillServiceTimeout" and report back...(my computer is currently set at 20000 ... does this seem abnormal to you?) Any other suggestions or ideas is much appreciated

Happy New Year!

 

Hi Any Insight,

Default is 20 seconds, so there´s nothing strange about that (20000 milliseconds)
Both Win2k and XP work fine at 2000 on this machine.
Don´t take giant steps. Once you get screens about programs not responding on shutdown, step back a bit.

Regards,

Pieter

 

Hi Pieter_Arntz!

I just discovered many other people were suffering from exactly the same (slow shut down) problem, and it turns out the problem is caused by the recent MicroSoft update:

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,5312830~root=winme~mode=flat

Apparently, the MicroSoft Update "Q329170" causes the hangups on W2K machines. After I tried the un-install of the update, BINGO! my "shut down" problem disappeared (I assume only temporarily, as unless MicroSoft addresses this issue in the next full service pack, I will get the problem again if they incorporate it back in.)

Thanks again for your input!

Added URL tags

 

Hi Any Insight,

Good to see you found the answer
Removing critical updates is not my favorite way of solving problems, but this one looks not too critical, unless:

Recommendation: Administrators whose Windows 2000 or Windows XP Gold systems are configured to use SMB Signing should install the patch immediately.

Regards,

Pieter

 

Glad to hear you got the issue resolved.

And why doesn't it surprise me another MS update didn't do what it was supposed to do...

Best regards,

-Javacool

 

Hopefully the update will be patched and repatched before SP4 comes along

Regards,

Pieter

 

The slow down was a nightmare. It made the shutdown time go from a respectable 5 or under seconds, to anywhere from 1 minute to NEVER. In addition to that little side effect, there is also another problem status post MS updates in IE 5.5 and 6 - clicking links and getting totally blank pages. There are so many posts all over the net it's hard to keep track of all of them now, because just about everyone is experiencing it. It's too much to go into in this thread - I mainly wanted to acknowledge the shutdown problem since that was the topic here. But I also wanted to point out/warn about the other one - they seem to be equally as common and equally as annoying. Unfortunately, almost everyone - myself included - ended up going the re-install route. The problem being, that each reinstall ALSO included another trip to the MS Update site. So it was maddeningly circular. But if there's any interest, I'll be glad to post the links to the main help threads, because there is a fix - sort of - at least until MS comes out with their next whatever. I honestly cannot believe that after all this time W2K is still so freakin unstable. It really takes all the fun out of it.

sk

 

Well what fun would there be if it was rock-solid stable?

It might be nice if you could post the links to those help threads, if you get a chance.

Best regards and thanks,

-Javacool

 

Done.

sk