Tuesday Tip: How to Shut Your PC Down Faster

By Richard Stokes

Slow PCIt’s 5:15pm and your old foe; ‘Atlanta traffic’ is waiting for you as soon as you get in your car.  You’re staring at your screen in the office, waiting for your PC to shut-down and wondering why on earth does it take so long?

And with every second that passes you know that the car volume is building and you’re that much further from getting home or to your next appointment or wherever it is you’re desperately trying to go.  Then a message pops up on your screen that says something like; “saving your settings” or “closing network connections” or “waiting for applications to close” and as you wait, you can feel your blood pressure rising – which is okay if you work in a doctor’s office but for the rest of us, not so much.

Admit it – we’ve all been there.  Now it’s totally possible that you have a bunch of applications running in the background that slow down the process anyway but here’s an easy trick that will speed that process up a little.

By default your PC plays an audio sound when you shut your computer down – you might remember it from the Microsoft XP days.  It’s called the ‘Exit Windows’ sound.  Turn that off and you’ll be surprised at the difference it makes. Go ahead give it a try – here’s what you do:

1)    Go to your Control Panel and look for ‘Sounds’.  Depending on your settings your control panel might look like this:

Sound Menu

 

 

 

 

or this…

Sound Menu2

 

 

 

2)    On either window, click on ‘Sound’ and you’ll get the following pop up menu.  Click on the Sounds tab and look for the ‘Exit Windows’ option.

Exit Windows

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3)    Click ‘Exit Windows’ and change the sound to ‘None’ and click ‘Apply’

Sound None

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To see how much of a difference it makes for you, try shutting your computer down first, before you make the change, then make the change and shut down again and see how much it speeds up your shutdown time.  I bet you’ll see a difference.  Now get in your car, fire up Waze and get home for dinner!

Richard Stokes Headshot

Richard Stokes: As the Director of Sales for Network 1, Richard identifies “future” clients that can benefit from the support of an experienced, outsourced IT team. He helps clients and prospects find technology solutions they need to achieve better productivity and efficiency so they can focus on making money and growing their businesses.

Network 1 designs, builds and supports the IT you need to run your business more securely, productively and successfully. Whether you want to outsource all of your IT needs to a reliable, responsive, service-oriented company, or need to supplement the work of your internal IT staff, we will carefully evaluate where you are now, discuss where you want to go and implement and support a plan to get you there with as little interruption as possible.

2 Comments

  1. PrimeOutsourcing on November 5, 2013 at 7:59 pm

    Every second matters. Even shutting down of PC’s shouldn’t take too long. Nice post!

  2. Staffchecking on November 8, 2013 at 3:20 am

    Every second counts. Even shutting down of PC’s shouldn’t take too long. Nice post!

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