You can start the Event Viewer in Windows using the keyboard shortcut [Windows R], typing [eventvwr.msc] and hitting [enter]. Navigate in the Event Manager using the menu on the left side using the following path: Applications and Services Logs => Microsoft => Windows => Diagnostics-Performance => Operational. This will lead directly to the location that contains performance diagnostics not only for the Windows shutdown but also for standby and boot performance issues.

A good way to start is to sort the columns by Task Category. Click on the Task Category title and look for Shutdown Performance Monitoring entries. Each entry will contain information about the application or process that was causing problems during shutdown including the time it took to shutdown that process. A process that takes very long to shutdown is usually the problem for the shutdown problems.

Once the process or application has been identified it is a matter of finding out why it is causing the delay. It could be outdated or incompatible with that version of Windows and to a lesser extent a faulty version or driver. A good way to start is to look for updates for that software and install those if they are available. It might be easier on the other hand to simply deactivate or uninstall the software if that is possible.

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A good way to start would be to look up the Event Id in a database that contains a list of them. This has to be done manually if you use the default Event Viewer.

The software Event Log Explorer is a free for personal use software that adds more comfort and functions to working with the Event Log in Windows. It basically displays the same amount of information but offers ways to quickly lookup Event Ids on the Internet. A right-click on an Event Id will provide the user with the option to look it up in the Event Id database or Microsoft Knowledge Base.

That’s actually only one of the new functions that make the product a great replacement. The quick filtering function is another one. Whenever you right-click on a column you can quickly filter for that value, right-clicking on a date for example gives the option to filter events of that date.

Another interesting addition is that the description of the event is available in a third pane that has been added. If you use the default Event Viewer you have to right-click the event and select Properties to get the description which gives more details about the event.

The only limitation of the free version is that it does not allow you to connect to more than three computers.

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