Windows 7 - slow shutdown after Zone Alarm latest

[kwil]

Hi...
I'm running Windows 7 (Home Premium - 64-bit)

I've been using Zone Alarm Free Antivirus & Firewall for ages with no problems.

However, when running routine ZA AntiVirus update, window popped up telling me of ZA 'upgrade'.

I know from experience automatically letting 'upgrades' run can cause problems.
So: I downloaded latest 'Zone Alarm Free Antivirus & Firewall version'
I then uninstalled my current version and reinstalled new version.

All went well...until I came to shutdown...Normally around 30 seconds, now it was taking over twice that
.
I went into 'Safe Mode' and checked shutdown time from there...lightning fast.

I opened 'Regedit' > HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control
I checked 'WaitToKillServiceTimeout': it was set at I believe the default '12000' = 12 millisecs.
I changed this to '10' millisecs...but shutdown time was still as above

Can anyone tell me how I can solve this niggle??

Many thanks

 

[richc46]

At times it is very difficult to uninstall an antivirus completely. If Zone Alarm has an uninstall tool, try using that to uninstall, again. I would try to reinstall and see if you get any better results.

 

[kwil]

Hi rich...many thanks for taking time to reply.

Tried re-installing but no joy. All residual files cleaned by uninstaller. As I said, I've been using this software for ages, including various updates etc but never had this shutdown problem afterward.
No other software has been added or taken from my system and the shutdown was fine before the ZA new install.

Anyone else had the same problem or suggest another solution???

Many thanks

 

[richc46]

There is an obvious conflict between ZA and some other software. Follow the clean boot instructions to determine the cause.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...ation-conflicts-performing-clean-startup.html

 

[RolandJS]

richc is probably right as rain; when I added WinAntiRansom into my soup of Win-products, my Mozilla Thunderbird had to be replaced with eM Client. Very slow startups and/or very slow restarts/shutdowns can definitely be caused by clash[es] bigtime. I'll be watching this thread, 'cause momentarily my desktop at home is very very slow on the startup. In short, for you and me, newer this, newer that, drivers, EXEs, etc. definitely clashing with something old, something blue, something borrowed or paid for.

 

[matrixshaman]

I've got the same problem here. I've used ZA for many years with no problems until the last upgrade. This is on a very fast computer with SSD and very fast startups/shutdowns but now it hangs on shutdown forever. Many minutes - and I always have to power it off to get it completely off. But if I exit ZA before shutdown it goes down fine and fast. Very annoying as I am so used to just hitting shutdown that most of the time I forget to exit ZA. Then windows comes up saying it wasn't shutdown properly. It concerns me it may be scrambling the hard drive at times. There doesn't seem to be any way to directly ask ZA about this nor is there any info on this problem in their Q&A or forums I can find.

I'm trying to recall how to log the shutdown - anyone know that?

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Is this problem occurring with ZA's firewall only or is it only happening with the complete suite (firewall and anti-virus)?

 

[matrixshaman]

I have ZA's firewall only. I run Avira for AV. I tried some tips here to show the shutdown with verbosity added in registry and using gpedit.msc but nothing showed up. I then wrote a script (batch file) using these commands:
taskkill /F /PID 5012
taskkill /F /PID 4884
shutdown /s /f /t 0

The PID's are for zatray.exe and ZAPrivacyService.exe and you have to use the PID with /F rather than /IM or it won't work. I had to add the script to the shutdown using gpedit.msc in the computer config > Windows settings > scripts > shutdown and ALSO to the User config > Windows settings > scripts > Logoff.

I also made an Icon for the batch file but in case I forget to click that for shutdown it also seems to work now with clicking the regular shutdown from the Start menu after adding it with gpedit as mentioned above. Not really the solution I wanted but it works and avoids having to power it off forcibly.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Methinks I'm just eschew ZA's latest upgrade until it gets fixed.

 

[matrixshaman]

That's probably a good idea although I doubt it effects all computers - probably just a certain combo of things that create the issue. I did finally find a way to send ZA tech support a message about the issue. If I get any response I'll post it here.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

That's probably a good idea although I doubt it effects all computers - probably just a certain combo of things that create the issue. I did finally find a way to send ZA tech support a message about the issue. If I get any response I'll post it here.

Thank you!

 

[kwil]

Hi all...many thanks for taking time to reply. Apologies for not responding sooner...
I followed instructions for Clean Startup from 'rich' above. Could only find one service 'ZA Privacy Service' that might be the culprit. But disabling it resulted in the same problem of slow shutdown.
I tried going on ZA's forum for some answers but this proved fruitless.
Consequently I decided to ditch ZA altogether, installed Avast (used them in the past)...Result?...Shutdown now fast as before.
Only conclusion therefore is that the problem lies with this ZA update.
As I said, I had no problems whatsoever before this.
Since this update contained 'modifications' to suit Windows 10, I'm pretty convinced this is where the bug lies.
Chances are that those of us like me on Win7 and others on Win8 are having the same problem.
So foliks...go Avast until such times as ZA fixes this??

Many thanks again for all your inputs

 

[matrixshaman]

kwil, Zonealarm's zatray.exe is also running on my system in addition to ZAPrivacyService.exe. You can see it in the task manager if you had the same version as I had and it was installed. Not sure how you disabled ZAPrivacyService.exe but it is possible you may have had to completely exit ZA to have it out of memory. Anyway glad you got your shutdown fixed with Avast.

I have now repeatedly confirmed it shuts down properly when I task kill them as mentioned in my previous post. Before fixing this the computer had been freezing on shutdown since November 7th. I'm actually fairly happy now with this solution as it shuts down fine with the regular Shutdown button and seems to be as quick as it was before the ZA update and once I found the commands that worked it is not really hard to implement.

I checked and still have no response from ZA tech support.

 

[anne1982]

Hello all,


I am still having this problem and couldn't find a solution for it! Anyone knows more about it?


Thanks & regards,


Anne

 

[DavidE]

I'm playing around with AV programs right now and just installed Zone Alarm Free Antivirus & Firewall.
When i shut down i see Shutting down TrueVector Internet Monitoring service adds a lot of time to shutdown.
I don't know if there is a fix or tweek for this.