Windows Vista can, after a while take progressively longer and longer to shut down. This is due to applications that install services that start at boot time and then take ages to stop and sometimes time out when Windows is being shut down. Luckily for us, there is a way to force Windows to shut down these services much quicker. Doing this will make Vista shut down much faster!

Here's how you do it:

- Press Windows key + R (This will bring up the Run dialog)

- In the Run dialog box type regedit and press Enter

- Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control

- On the right hand window pane you will see multiple string values.

- Look out for one called WaitToKillServiceTimeout. It should have a default calue of 20000. This represents 20000 millisconds or 20 seconds.
- Double click on WaitToKillServiceTimeout and change the value to 5000(Any lower value could cause system instability and likely errors)

- Click OK and we're done!

You can now close the Registry Editor window.