Shut Down Windows

ShutDownWindows is a Windows 98 utility that allows you to terminate applications before doing a shutdown or restart.

Click on the Setup button to view the running processes.

Notice that a few of them have a + next to their name. That's because they have been added to the list of applications to be terminated. When you click on the Done button you can choose to either shut down your PC (power off), restart it (reboot) or just terminate the specified applications.

In each case, the program attempts to terminate the applications, and then do the shutdown or restart if requested. If you just choose the Close Background Applications option, then the program will terminate after attempting to shut down those processes.

Why do this? Sometimes an application takes too long to terminate, and then the PC displays that annoying "Windows is shutting down" message forever. This utility assists in determining whether any of your background processes are the cause of this. Another reason is that when trying to run utilities like DEFRAG after installing Microsoft Office or other applications, you may get that annoying condition where defrag just gets going and is then interrupted by something else, like FindFile or the task scheduler. This utility attempts to terminate all those tasks so that defrag can run uninterrupted.

Please note: This program has only been tested on Microsoft Windows 98 and Windows 98 Second Edition. The utility will not run on Windows XP or Vista. Not all applications you select will terminate even when requested. This utility attempts 10 times and then moves on to the next task. Some of the stubborn programs are firewall utilities and anti-virus programs.

Version 1.2 adds a command line option:
shutdownwindows.exe all
will terminate all the processes marked with a +, and then quit. Also,
shutdownwindows.exe scanner.exe
will terminate "scanner.exe" if it is in the list. The idea behind this is that you can have a batch file to do the defrag in Windows 98 that reads:
shutdownwindows.exe all
DEFRAG.EXE C: /F /NOPROMPT /DETAILED

You can download the setup program for ShutDownWindows Version 1.2 build 30 (1543k), which works on Win9x. Do not attempt to use it on Windows NT, 2000, XP or Vista. If you are willing to sign my standard non-disclosure agreement you can have the full source code (158k) as well.

Here is a list of Common Processes that can be safely stopped courtesy of the commercial product TAG by WM Software. It's a great package for freeing up memory. Also have a look at their PerfOpt XP freeware utlity for better configuring the way your PC uses RAM with Win9x and WinXP. The Sysinternals utility PsKill can be used in WinXP to kill off unwanted processes. Use it wisely.

Please note: This program is not to be sold, and will remain freeware in the future. You can't make it available for download anywhere else either. All downloads should be made from this page only. You may not list this software elsewhere without written permission. All links should point to this page, not directly to the download file.

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All information copyright © 2003, 2004 Black and White Inc. All rights reserved. First published 12 October 2003. Last Updated: 23-Nov-2007 13:54