Get Windows XP to shut down faster.

Q. I understand why Windows XP takes ages to fire up--after all, it has to load so much start-up software. But why does it also take so long to close down?

A. it's because Windows has to turn off each application you have left open--saving critical data along the way. Then it runs a quick system check before it goes to sleep. But there is a way to speed up the process by a few seconds. In a blank area of your desktop, right-click and then select New, Shortcut and in the Create Shortcut screen type shutdown -s -t 0 (see screenshot below). Be sure there's a space before each hyphen and the last character is a zero, not the letter O. Then click on Next and in the Type a Name for This Shortcut box, enter a title and click on Finish.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Advisory: Be sure to save and close all applications before initiating any shutdown to make the process faster.

Key to Instructions

To help readers follow the instructions in this article, we use two different typefaces:

* Boldface type is used to identify the names of icons, agendas and URLs.

* Sans serif type shows commands and instructions users should type into the computer and the names of files.

STANLEY ZAROWIN, a former J of A senior editor, is now a contributing editor to the magazine. His e-mail address is [e-mail].