Windows 11 and Windows 10 have a lot of annoying default settings, but nothing worse than the OS refusing to kill unresponsive tasks when you choose to shutdown or restart. By default, if a single program (even a simple background program) refuses to shut down or claims to have unsaved data, the OS will display an error message and either cancel the shutdown or , you can choose to force quit. Press “Restart Anyway” or “Shut Down Anyway” to launch the app.
In theory, this is a great safety feature for those who don’t care about saving their work. Perhaps you had an important document open in Notepad, rebooted to install an update, and forgot to save your work beforehand. This notification will allow you to return to your Windows desktop, save your files, and reboot again.
But in reality, there are many apps that refuse auto-shutdown. I’ve also seen peripheral control software do this. So I ended up choosing to restart, leaving the computer for a few minutes while I waited for the computer to work (perhaps running a Windows update), and then coming back, the PC still asked for permission to restart. I know you are waiting. let me rest!
Luckily, this problem can be easily fixed by editing the Windows Registry. There are a few settings you can adjust to change how long Windows waits before closing a hung app, but the most important is setting HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\AutoEndTasks to 1. Do this step. Below is a step-by-step explanation.
How to end tasks automatically in Windows 11 or 10
1. Open Registry Editor. To get there, search for “regedit” and click the top result. Click Yes when prompted for permission.
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop.
3. Create a string value called AutoEndTasks. if it doesn’t already exist. To create a string value, right-click in the right pane and select New->String Value. Then rename the created one to AutoEndTasks.
Four. Set AutoEndTasks to 1. You can do this by double-clicking on it and setting the number to 1.
Five. Add the following optional string Reduce shutdown time.
- WaitToKillAppTimeout: How long Windows waits before killing open apps. The default is 20,000 milliseconds (20 seconds), but can be set as low as 2,000 milliseconds (2 seconds) for lower latency.
- Hangup timeout: How long Windows waits before automatically closing an unresponsive app. The default is 5,000 ms, but can be reduced to 2,000 ms.
6. Set WaitToKillServiceTimeout up to 2,000 If you want to reduce the amount of time Windows waits for unresponsive services, it’s under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control.
7. close regedit and restart your pc.
From now on, Windows should wait a few seconds before killing apps on shutdown. So make sure that the work you want to keep is really saved.
To change another annoying default Windows setting that slows you down, see How to Disable Windows Web Search.
