The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Win explorer.exe slow to shutdown

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by Capella1, Nov 15, 2008.

  1. Capella1

    Capella1 Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    20
    Messages:
    142
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Hey gang, anybody now why explorer.exe would be slow to shutdown?

    Everytime I shutdown or restart I get the black window that says explorer.exe is still running end now or wait. It does not actually stay present long enough to respond - in fact, I almost cannot make out what it says before it goes away, but it seems it should not be happening. Is this normal?
     
  2. entropy.cz

    entropy.cz Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    110
    Messages:
    386
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    just by chance... is it win xp with this week's win update? (if it's not that vista mentioned in your sig) i've noticed something similar on my workstation since then, it may be a coincidence though
     
  3. Capella1

    Capella1 Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    20
    Messages:
    142
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Not XP. Vista Ultimate 64.

    Not sure when it started doing this as I have barely had it a month and seems like there is something to update everyday.
     
  4. Guntraitor Sagara

    Guntraitor Sagara Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    107
    Messages:
    379
    Likes Received:
    6
    Trophy Points:
    31
    try a registry cleaner. Ccleaner will do. Sometimes i also have bad/slow shutdowns :)
     
  5. Capella1

    Capella1 Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    20
    Messages:
    142
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    No change after CCleaner or other maintenance apps.
     
  6. Capella1

    Capella1 Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    20
    Messages:
    142
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Turned off the 'Exit Windows' sound and it quit slowing explorer.exe closure.

    I can only assume that this .wav file delays explorer closing.
     
  7. Shyster1

    Shyster1 Notebook Nobel Laureate

    Reputations:
    6,926
    Messages:
    8,178
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    205
    Is anything showing up in your event logs? If something goofed up on explorer.exe, it should be logged there.
     
  8. Capella1

    Capella1 Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    20
    Messages:
    142
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Nothing really showing up. I had a couple of warnings indicating longer than usual start up or shutdown times on a couple of occasions, but they seem to have quit.

    Went back to normal start up, got rid of all the so called tweaks, and everything is fine now. Boots faster and shuts down in the blink of an eye. Don't think the tweaks are of much benefit if you've got the ram and cpu available - most of the services you might disable seem not to run when not used anyway.
     
  9. mdrift

    mdrift Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    24
    Messages:
    34
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    Another thing to keep in mind is that anything that appears in the right click menu is also loaded in the explorer.exe process and may cause the shutdown to stutter/slow down. This includes things like anti-virus extensions, WinZip, thumbnail viewers for raw files and so on...
     
  10. Capella1

    Capella1 Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    20
    Messages:
    142
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    I've since gone back and turned on a shutdown sound from a different theme, not the long winded standard vista one, and it works fine.

    Not getting shutdown or boot warnings anymore either.