We all know that pulling the power to your computer has to be the absoulute fastest but not the best way to shutdown your computer. In this 5 step tutorial we will show you how to make your shutdown as fast as possible.

Step 1: Stop as many services as possible.

The more that is running on your computer the more your computer has to close on shut down. Keeping a slimmer running computer will not only make your computer run faster but it will make Windows shutdown faster. Here is how its done:

Go to the Start menu and then select Run. Type services.msc in the Run Dialog Box and click on OK. In the services window double click on the service you wish to disable. In the properties box for the selected service choose disabled in the Startup Type dropdown box. Click on OK.

Its best to restart your computer after disabling a couple of services at a time so if something undesired happens to your computer you know what disabled service needs to be re-enabled.

Step 2: Automatically kill tasks on shutdown.

Windows XP by default will ask you if you wish to end a process if an application is running during the shutdown process. This little registry change will tell Windows to automatically end the process without your confirmation.

Go to the Start menu and then select Run. In the Run box type in regedit and click on OK. Navigate to 'HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelDesktop' and double click on the 'AutoEndTasks'. Change the value to 1 and click on OK.

Step 3: Reduce the wait time to kill open applications.

When you choose to shutdown your computer, Windows will automatically wait a little bit before it kills applications that are open. Here we will show you how to reduce the wait time.

Go to the Start menu and then select Run. In the Run box type in regedit and click on OK. Navigate to 'HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelDesktop' and double click on the 'WaitToKillAppTimeout'. Change the value to 1000 and click on OK. Double click on 'HungAppTimeout' and change the value to 1000 then click on OK. Navigate to 'HKEY_USERS.DEFAULTControl PanelDesktop' nd double click on the 'WaitToKillAppTimeout'. Change the value to 1000 and click on OK. Double click on 'HungAppTimeout' and change the value to 1000 then click on OK.

Step 4: Reduce the wait time for services to be shutdown.

Much like applications, Windows XP waits a bit for the services to shutdown before it starts killing them. Here is how to reduce the wait time.

Go to the Start menu and then select Run. In the Run box type in regedit and click on OK. Navigate to 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSetControl'. Double click on 'WaitToKillServiceTimeout' and change the value to 1000 then click on OK.

Step 5: The ONE click shutdown

More mouse clicks equals more time. Thats right, why go to start then click on shutdown and select shutdown. It seems like too much work for me. Here is a tutorial on how to make a shutdown shortcut on your desktop.

Right click on your desktop and select new then shortcut. Now you will see the New Shortcut wizard. Under the location for this item type SHUTDOWN -s -t 01 then click on Next. Give the shortcut a name, I like Shutdown. Then click on Finish.

Just as a quick note you can do the same for a quick restart just enter in SHUTDOWN -r -t 01 as the location and then you are all set.