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Expert
83 Answers
- Posted on Aug 15, 2009
Re: won't shut down completely
If shutting down XP takes what seems to be an inordinate amount of
time, here are a couple of steps you can take to speed up the shutdown
process:
- Don't have XP
clear your paging file at shutdown. For security reasons, you can have
XP clear your paging file (pagefile.sys) of its contents whenever you
shut down. Your paging file is used to store temporary files and data,
but when your system shuts down, information stays in the file. Some
people prefer to have the paging file cleared at shutdown because
sensitive information such as unencrypted passwords sometimes ends up
in the file. However, clearing the paging file can slow shutdown times
significantly, so if extreme security isn't a high priority, you might
not want to clear it. To shut down XP without clearing your paging
file, run the Registry Editor (click Start > Run, then type regedit in the Run box) and go to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
- Change
the value of ClearPageFileAtShutdown to 0. Close the Registry, and
restart your computer. Whenever you turn off XP from now on, the paging
file won't be cleared, and you should be able to shut down more
quickly.
Note: Please be careful when editing the Registry;
you can do a lot of damage here. Don't change or delete anything unless
you know exactly what it is.
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