Automatically Close Applications at Shutdown

This feature allows you to force your computer to shut down more quickly and without your input.

When you shut down (sign out or restart) your system, Windows sends a signal to all running applications and asks them to close or be closed automatically. More often than not, the applications will close themselves. However, if there is any unsaved work in any of the application, that application can block the shutdown process so as to prompt you to save the work before shutting down the system. When that happens, Windows gives you a “force shut down” option, asking for your permission to close any running applications. From there, you can either cancel the shut down to take a look at the blocking applications or force shutdown by clicking on the “Shutdown anyway” button. This is a useful feature that helps you not lose any of your work, but it is not uncommon for some applications to misuse the feature or just “hang” and block shutdown. Using the “Automatically Close Applications at Shutdown” feature, you can control whether Windows automatically closes running applications or not.

You shouldn’t normally need to change this setting because it can lead to issues such as application being unable to save their data properly, as Windows kills them before they can do that. But it can be helpful if you’d like to force your computer to shut down more quickly and without your input.

Benefits:

• Convenience
• Boost shutdown speed

Risk Level: RED

System reboot: required

OS: XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10, 11