Increase Service Shutdown Time http://windows.about.com/od/performancetopics/l/aa022000a.

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Increase Service Shutdown Time

Dateline: 02/20/00

By default, the Service Control Manager, the part of the operating system that controls the starting and stopping of
services, will allow each service 20,000 milliseconds (20 seconds) to shutdown. If a particular service needs more time
than this to shut down, you may have to make a registry change to allow this. If you often receive the "Wait" or "End Task"
message when shutting down your machine, it could be an indication that a particular service needs more time in order to
complete its shutdown. Keep in mind, however, that it could also be an indication of another problem, such as a disk or
network bottleneck, that causes the time delay.

In order to give services more than the default 20 seconds to shut down, modify the following registry parameter (after
backing up your registry):

Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Key: System\CurrentControlSet\Control
Name: WaitToKillServiceTimeout
Data Type: REG_SZ
Value: time (in milliseconds)

A reboot is necessary for the change to take effect. This change is global: all of the services will now be allowed the
amount of time that you set, although, since they are multithreaded, your system may not take any longer overall to shut
down. In fact, it is a good idea not to increase the overall shutdown time without considering other factors, such as the
amount of time your UPS can sustain the system. For a long term solution, it would be good to ask the question, "Why is
this service taking longer than 20 seconds to shut down?" There could be a legitimate answer, such as closing large
database files, or there could be a problem, such as a device is not working properly. In the meantime, however, this
changing this registry can keep you from losing data or having other problems.

If you would like to discuss more about this or any other aspect of Windows NT/2000, please feel free to post your
questions, opinions, or comments on the Focus on Windows NT forum, or visit the Chat room to exchange information,
ideas and opinions with other NT'ers.

'Till next time,

Douglas Ludens
Windows NT Guide

PS: Don't forget to sign up for our free About Windows NT newsletter below (another great source of NT security news and
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