shutdown query

hi all, Asus Vivobook laptop,
recently when trying to shut down I get the message that I need to close the shutdown app before shutting down,
I can click Shutdown Anyway and my laptop closes, this message has only recently appreard,
anybody explain it to me please,
error and windows version .jpg's attached
all help and advice appreciated

conrail said:

hi all, Asus Vivobook laptop,
recently when trying to shut down I get the message that I need to close the shutdown app before shutting down,
I can click Shutdown Anyway and my laptop closes, this message has only recently appreard,
anybody explain it to me please,
error and windows version .jpg's attached
all help and advice appreciated

Click to expand...

Hi Asus Vivobook laptop,

Please, instead of pressing Shutdown anyway, press Cancel to see what is still running via Task Manager.
We'll get a clearer picture of what holding the shutdown.

conrail said:

hi all, Asus Vivobook laptop,
recently when trying to shut down I get the message that I need to close the shutdown app before shutting down,
I can click Shutdown Anyway and my laptop closes, this message has only recently appreard,
anybody explain it to me please,
error and windows version .jpg's attached
all help and advice appreciated

Click to expand...

did you try a cold shutdown?

Here's how I fix the problem with all my PC's
Copy and paste into a file, change the extension to .reg, double click to merge into the registry:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"AutoEndTasks"="1"
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"WaitToKillAppTimeout"="1000"

thank you OAT, I will give that a try
thank you Vegeta Tarble, not sire what a cold shutdown is,
thank youTopgundcp, will look into that, never touched the registry before

Ho OAT, the only application running is Desktop Window Manager, doing a search shows that it deals with animations and visual effects

conrail said:

Ho OAT, the only application running is Desktop Window Manager, doing a search shows that it deals with animations and visual effects

Click to expand...

OK, I hate to contradict you but it is not possible that the only thing left running is DWM.
Please take a screenshot without the dialog box masking Task Manager if you could.
(this after initiating shutdown and launching screen capture of course)

The suggestion by @Topgundcp is what I use as well as this is a rather frequent occurrence.
Some apps/programs/services are sometimes slower to shutdown than the system itself resulting in the warning you are getting.
Do you recall how & when it started happening?

In order to merge the file as suggested above:

1- Right click on the desktop, select New then Text Document (you might need More before that for standard Win 11)
2- Open (by double clicking) that newly created text file which will be empty., Put it aside.
3- Copy what's in the code box below.


4 - Go back to the text file and paste the content you just copied into that file.
5- Save then that text file.
6- Highlight (single clicking) the name of the text file and press F2 to rename it.
7- Change the extension of the file from .txt to .reg , it will ask for Are you sure.... , select Yes
8- Right click on that now reg file and select Merge, answer Yes a few times until you get confirmation that the merge was successful.
9- Reboot and next time you shutdown your system, the error will be gone.

@OAT

Do you recall how & when it started happening?

Click to expand...

It happens even on a fresh install of windows but the more apps users install with background processes, it will happen more often.
While Windows is running, there's lots of processes running in the background from both Windows and third party software as shown 53 processes running in the background doing nothing until needed.

AutoEndTasks: this tells Windows to force-close apps rather than waiting for user confirmation.
WaitToKillServiceTimeout: The default value is 5000, ie. 5 seconds which is too long, so i set to 1 sec.

thank you Topgundcp & OAT, followed instructions for registry file, created ok? something missing, I cannot get the merge option

The file you attached is New Text Document.reg.txt, remove .txt extension
so it'll be like this: New Text Document.reg
Then just double click it to merge

thank you Topgundcp & OAT for your help, advice and especially your patience, it is greatly appreciated, problem all sorted
thank you Vegeta Tarble for your imput