Windows slow to restart or shutdown....

[Cr00zng]

How Windows 8.1 restarts/shuts down irks me...

W8.1 has the latest updates, sans the W10 malware, is slow to restart/shutdown. Restarting the system takes couple of seconds for "Windows is restarting..." screen to appear, but it takes another 30-40 seconds for that screen to disappear and actually restart the computer.

The shutdown process is even more puzzling for me. Shutting down the system brings up the "Windows is shutting down..." that displayed for couple of seconds. Then the screens go black, the monitors go into power save mode (no video signal received), but the system is still running for 30-40 seconds before the computer is actually shutdown.

The same computer dual boots with W7 that within 5 seconds restarts/shuts down. The dual boot is managed within the BIOS/EUFI "F12" key to select the drive to boot from. Both Windows 8.1 and 7 runs from their own SSD drives without being aware of the other OS.

This is certainly due to the W8.1 and not to the hardware. Both W8.1 and 7 is run just fine performance wise as they should with quad-CPU, SSDs and 16 gig memory.

Anyone has an idea what causes the slow restart/shutdown in W8.1?
TIA...

 

[Cr00zng]

I've suspected Windows telemetry from the beginning to be the reason for the delayed restart /shut down and the suspicion was right. Despite removing all the telemetry patches, disabling all of the monitoring, etc., evidently system files had been "updated" to send the telemetry data anyway, if and when the user signs out, restarts or shuts down the system.

Installed Spybot Anti-Beacon 1.5, designed to disable telemetry in the system and MS Office, immunized my system, the restart is almost instantaneous and so is sign out.

Shutdown still has the delay, albeit the "Shutting down Windows..." screen disappears faster, the about 30 seconds delay to shut off the power is still there after the monitors go standby. It does not make a difference, if I unplug the network cable. It's still takes half a minute to power off and there are no errors in the logs. I just shut off the power on the strip as soon as the monitors go standby; even that does not result in an error message the next time the system is booted. Weird...

Is there a way to record the shutdown process? It does not seem that one could actually monitor the process, especially after the monitors go standby...

Edit: added link to Spybot Anti-Beacon...