Shut Down Windows Quickly

Reduce Timeout To Kill Service Or App

Before Windows shuts down, it attempts to properly close all running processes. If a service doesn’t close immediately, Windows waits for a few seconds, until it prompts the user that the service is not responding to the shutdown request. The amount of this waiting time is defined by registry keys and you can reduce it.
These are two fairly harmless registry hacks. If you follow the steps outlined in this article, it should in no way harm your system. Nevertheless, I have to issue a warning:

Editing the registry can damage your operating system! I or MakeUseOf take no responsibility whatsoever!  Make a backup of your registry before continuing.

For the first hack, click the key combination > [WINDOWS] + [R], type > regedit into the text field, and click > OK to launch the registry editor.
In the registry editor, navigate to this folder:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control

Within that folder (on the right) find and double-click the string > WaitToKillServiceTimeout.
In the > Edit String window, change the > Value data from the default of 12000 (12 seconds) to 2000 (2 seconds). Click > OK to save the change.

For the second hack, navigate to the following location via the registry editor:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

On the right, find and double-click the string > WaitToKillAppTimeout.

If this entry does not exist, you can create it. Right-click into the folder and click through > New > String Value, and name it > WaitToKillAppTimeout.
Set > Value data to 2000, click > OK.
In the same registry folder, if you see an entry called > AutoEndTasks, set its > Value data to 1, then close the registry editor.
Shutdown time: 27 seconds