Reducing time to kill apps ?

A. run Registry editor: navigate to

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
On the right, find and double-click the string > WaitToKillAppTimeout.

If this entry does not exist, you can create it. Right-click into the folder and click through > New > String Value, and name it > WaitToKillAppTimeout.

Set > Value data to 2000, click > OK. (adjust to suit, 2000milliseconds=2 sec, default i think is 5000ms)

In the same registry folder, if you will see an entry called > AutoEndTasks, set its > Value data to 1, then close the registry editor.

OR

B: create a forced shutdown link:

right-click desktop, select new shortcut

1st window: enter

Shutdown -f -t 0

(-f= force and -t zero= don't wait)

2nd window: enter a name for the shortcut, ie. 'Forced Shutdown"

OK & thereafter click that shortcut to force the shutdown.

notes: don't set the registry value too small or it may not give windows time enough to cleanly shut down your apps, to save values, etc. same for the shutdown shortcut. the '-f' forces immediate shutdown and you may not be giving it time to shutdown in an organised manner. the -t {time} is just a waiting time before shutdown and does not affect the time windows waits to force application shutdown when it finally occurs, that is, it does not affect the -f timing. there is another parameter to adjust services shutdown kill time, best left alone.