Improve/decrease shutdown time?

[laundromatt]

I saw all the discussion about ways to decrease startup time, but what kinds of things can be done to decrease the time it takes for the laptop to shutdown? I did a search, but there wasn't anything specifically mentioning shutdown times.

Thanks!

[pianowizard]

I am not sure about this, but I think turning off "System Restore" helps.

[christopher_wolf]

Pretty much the same for startup-to-desktop times (particularly the login times).

Get rid of any hard-to-kill processes and then defragment your drive until it has little to no fragmentation. Kill off any Windows Services you are not using and clean the registry. That is about it unless you want to take the direct route by holding down the power button.