This tip is geared towards servers, but is applicable to desktops as well in certain cases.
Whenever you shutdown Windows, a “stop” command is sent to programs and background services which are currently running. Typically programs will respond to this quickly and close, however services are a different animal which can take a while to quit (i.e. Exchange Server).
After waiting for a specified amount of time, Windows will simply force the program to quit in order to continue with the shutdown. To control how long Windows waits before forcing the service to quit, edit this registry entry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\WaitToKillService
Note, the time is in milliseconds (1 second = 1000) if you decide to make a change. Also bear in mind that when a service is forced to quit, it is the same as flipping the off switch. For the most part, you would only want to increase this value to give more time for your services to stop.
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