2Feb/102
A potential cure for Windows 7 hanging on shut down
My Windows 7 PC suddenly started hanging up when attempting to shut down. It would just sit on the "Windows is Shutting Down" screen indefinitely, and I would have to force the computer to shut off. The weird thing is that the problem seemed to come out of nowhere; I Googled solutions 'til I was blue in the face — all to no avail.
What finally fixed it (and I'm not sure why I even thought to try this) was changing the power settings to not power down the hard drive(s). Don't ask me why this fixed the problem, but it did.
To find these settings, go to Start > Control Panel > All Control Panel Items > Power Options. Next to the currently selected power plan, click Change plan settings.
At the next screen, click Change advanced power settings. Click the + next to Hard disk, and then click the plus again on Turn off hard disk after. In Setting (Minutes), type "0" (without the quotes). This will set your hard disk(s) to never power down. Click OK when you're done.
After changing the hard disk power setting, my hanging shut down problems were resolved. I'm sure there are many causes of this issue, so I'm not pretending this is the definitive fix. But it's worth a shot!
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Ava
March 18th, 2010 - 08:55
Good job. I tried your fix and it worked.I didn’t inter 0 though it just said never and it rebooted just fine. Nice work.
March 25th, 2010 - 07:57
Leonard — great! I know how frustrating it can be when Windows misbehaves, so I’m glad it’s working for you now.