More than likely you have a device or driver that is not shutting down and causing Vista to hang up on shutdown. But which one? it’s really hard to tell sometimes and since Vista does not make it easy for you to eliminate programs from start up it’s really hard to tell.

If you can remember when the problem started and what you did, like installing new software you may have a good starting point. If you recently installed a new program try deleting it. Sometimes the cache will cause problems so start by running a general cleanup on your computer. Delete all your temporary files.

Next thing you’ll want to check is to make sure you do not have a virus or spyware installed on your computer. Either one of these will cause Windows Vista to hang. Update your virus software and run a full scan. Same with your anti-spyware software, if you do not have any installed on your computer you will have to download a good spyware cleaner from a third party and run it.

The biggest reason Vista will suffer from a slow shutdown is because of a corrupt registry. Vista has to reference the registry every time it starts up or shuts down. If you have a corrupt entry or a corrupt, bloated registry then this is more than likely your problem.

Windows looks for software or programs that are no longer there or not working correctly. In most cases it will wait the full 30 seconds per entry, which is the default time to reference registry. So you can see why if you had more than one corrupt registry entry why Windows Vista would take so long to shutdown.

So the next thing you want to do is run a scan on your registry, clean it and repair it. Since Vista does not have a built-in registry cleaner you will have to get one from a third-party. I recommend avoiding the free ones, even though they sound really good and the price is right they do not do a complete job. They are actually designed that way so you go for their upgrade or Pro version which you have to pay for of course. So you’re better off starting with a professional registry cleaner to start with.

The paid versions of registry cleaners are well worth the investment. They do deeper scans and will find more problems and bad entries with the registry than any free ones ever will. Plus you can schedule them to run routine maintenance, which you should be doing anyways.

Some of the better registry cleaners like reg cure allow you to remove programs from the start up safely. Removing un-needed programs from start up will allow your computer to boot much faster and of course shutdown faster.

Once you’re through going through the maintenance procedures stated in this article your computer should be running like it did when it was new!