Slow Shutdown 2008 R2

[Michael]

Hello all,

Recently I have started deploying Windows Server 2008 R2, however in all cases, the Shutdown process is incredibly long - anywhere between 30-45 minutes. This is because 2008 R2 clears the pagefile when shutting down Windows. I don't know if this affects Server 2008 R1.

There's a simple fix for this:

Open up Group Policy Management and disable the following under Default Domain Controllers Policy:

Computer Config > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Local Policies > Security Options

Shutdown: Clear virtual memory pagefile - Disabled

When I disabled this and ran gpupdate /force, the Shutdown sequence (on a 2008 R2 domain controller) was less than 2 minutes.

The way I like to setup Active Directory is to create an OU under Domain Controllers called Member Servers. By dragging all server computer objects, all future 2008 R2 servers will then pick up the policy.

[jamesfed]

Thats most odd and I can never say I've had that problem and we are all 2008 R2 here (both fresh install and upgrades) - oviously it is a page file thing if that GPO works but I would look at other causes too.

Maybe something to do with the hardware you are running?

[Michael]

Well I did think hardware, but the servers in question are operating on decent Intel Snowhill motherboards, and under 2003 R2 this was never a problem. Both are using Intel Matrix RAID too, but I cannot imagine this being the problem.

If you google the problem, other people have had the same problem, so I can only assume it's a bug possibly. This small tweak just makes restarting servers that bit easier without the wait