Over time, your Windows XP computer might take a while to shut down. Is this because of old age? Well, sort of. What happens is your computer develops a paging file, or memory of your temporary files and data over time. When your 
system shuts down, it clears your temporary files and data to ensure that unencrypted passwords are not in your computer’s paging file. This is an extra layer of security from Windows to ensure the utmost security.
With any type of extra security, there is patience or delays that come along with it, almost similar to airline security. With passwords and anti-virus, this paging storage is not so critical or necessary. So, if you can do without this extra security, you may tweak the registry so that your computer doesn’t take the extra time to remove the paging files’ contents:
Click Start -> Run -> then type regedit and hit return.
Navigate to and left click on:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory Management
Then, change the value of the ClearPageFileAtShutdown to 0. Close the Registry and restart the computer.
Now, your computer should shut down quicker than before since it won’t take the extra time to clear the paging file.
