Inordinant Time Spent "saving settings"

Hello All,

Recently I've noticed that my computer (a Sony Vaio running Windows XP pro) is taking an inordinate amount of time, during shutdown, to save my settings (at least that's what it says it is doing). The amount of time this has taken has increased with time, when the machine was younger it was almost instantaneous.

Now, I'm a bit of a tinkerer, and I've done everything I know to do to speed up start-up and shutdown, but I'm really not sure how to effect this last delay or what could be causing it to take so much longer than it used to. If anybody can shed some light on this for me or help me fix the problem I'd be very appreciative.


Thanks,
sitontheedge

 

The obvious advice is to start undoing that you've done until things go back to 'normal'.

You did keep a log book as you went, no?

 

I just mash the power button down until mine shuts off, unless I need to save my settings.

 

Have you been defragmenting your hard disk? MyDefrag is a good choice as not only it will defragment the files in your hard disk, but also optimizes the hard disk (more info on the website). Perhaps you could also download, install and run CCleaner which will clean up all the useless and leftover files that Windows creates or saves on your computer. Hopefully, this will make your computer shut down faster.

 

A recipe for registry corruption! Not so much with NTFS these days as it was with FAT32, but still an accident waiting to happen.

Gary

 

you could try not clearing the pagefile on system shutdown

Run> regedit

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Control > Session Manager > Memory Management

set ClearPageFileAtShutdown to 0 (hexadecimal)

or go download TuneXP 1.5 (driverheaven.net). It works wonders with XP.

 

That would be good advice except that I started changing things to fix the problem, not before it started.

Yes, I run CCleaner regularly, and prefer JKdefrag which I use weekly. But neither of those has had any effect.


I found a solution thought, and it's related to what Malthd said. Apparently the problem is caused by various programs that keep their connections to the registry open during shutdown. There's a program called UPHClean that makes some slight modifications to your shutdown process--it cleared the problem right up.

 

But that just treats the symptoms and does not cure the disease. You need to find out what apps are keeping the Registry connection open. You might have a configuration issue or need to get an updated version. Apps should NOT be doing this.

Gary

 

Alright, but my system is up to date, and the apps I'm using are, so far as I know, generally reputable. What should I do to pinpoint the problem?

 

Reputable =/= good. For example, Nero and Adobe programs are highly reputable, but they're also well known for being extremely bloated. Such things are the norm in the Windows world.

Anyways, you have something telling you that a program is keeping the registry open during shutdown, but it doesn't tell you which program it is?

 

Yes, I you're right, my point was simply that I'm not loading and sketchy applications which are obvious suspects, and thus don't know how to start narrowing the possibilities for what is causing this. (Most of the applications my computer loads at start-up are driver related, pluss ObjectDock and Symantec Antivirus--otherwise I try and keep the number of memory resident items to a minimum.)

The reason I think I have programs accessing the registry is that, in trying to solve the above-mentioned problem, I found somebody recommending Microsoft's UPHClean (see this page for details). The attached documentation said that UPHClean takes care of such lingering access problems when unloading a user profile. I tested it out and it solved my problem (or at least took care of the symptom), so I'm left to assume that that is what's going on.

(Apparently, UPHClean leaves info in the system Application Log. But, being that I've never used the Application log before, I'm just now working out how to access that information.)

 

Ok, here's a bit more information: according to the App. Log, the offending program is, in fact, Symantec Antivirus (which is up to date). Specifically, I appears that the process "Rtvscan.exe", the real-time virus scanner, is to blame.

(Symantec AV also throws an error, in response:

SYMANTEC TAMPER PROTECTION ALERTTarget: C:\Program Files\Symantec AntiVirus\Rtvscan.exeEvent Info: Suspend ThreadAction Taken: BlockedActor Process: C:\Program Files\UPHClean\uphclean.exe
)

If anybody has any insight, please let me know.

 

Check out the "Reliability and Performance Monitor", I believe it is the app that logs shutdown times and anomalies.

Gary

 

XP has no reliability monitor and its performance monitor is a joke.

As for sitontheedge's question, which version of Symantec Antivirus are you running? I thought they fixed all the bloatware problems in the 2009 and 2010 versions.

 

I'm using version 10.1.5.5.

As to being bloated, it's using somewhere just north of 70mb, but I've got two gigs of RAM and that didn't really seem excessive.

 

I'm stretching the definition of "bloated" a bit here - old versions of Norton were notorious for irreparably damaging a Windows installation, among other things, and it wouldn't surprise me a bit if their corporate products used the same crappy code base.

At any rate, you should get a newer and better AV product anyway.

 

What would you recommend? I've always gotten Norton products free through academic institutions, so I guess I haven't done any shopping around in quite a while.

 

^

http://forum.notebookreview.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1046

If you want to move away from Norton 2009/2010 (which are very good, imo) then the next logical choices would be Kaspersky or ESET Nod32.

 

since you've pinpointed the problem, throw out Symantec AV. i would 2nd NOD32, but not Kaspersky. its still a resource hog. no point jumping from a burning ship into another burning ship

 

Hmm, thanks for the information and recommendations then. (Though I must say, after getting my antivirus software to totally free on site licenses for so long, this all looks rather costly...)

 

If you're looking for free, get Avira or Avast.

 

I'm liking Avira or G Data based on performance tests ( http://www.av-comparatives.org/comparativesreviews/main-tests) --the prices don't hurt either.

But you're right, ESET NOD seems like the best all-around package, with one glaring flaw: in the performance tests it cleaned up, except that it drastically slowed down archiving/unarchived, which is something I do a lot of. Taking this into account, it's overall effect on system performance was rated as about on-par with what I'm currently using.

Still, that looks like a good option.

 

Well, I guess this is the solution: I uninstalled Symantec and installed the trial version of ESET NOD32. That cleared up the shutdown problem, freed up about 30mb of memory, and generally boosted system performance of basic tasks.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys.