When you restart or shut down Windows 10, it may be stuck on a blue screen for a long time with a spinning circle.

Actually, Windows 10 is waiting for running applications to exit. If they don’t respond within 30 seconds, you’ll get the following screen and you can proceed with a forced shutdown.

To speed up the shutdown or rebooting process, you can reduce the timeout for unresponsive applications so Windows 10 doesn’t stuck at spinning circle for a long time.

How to Change Timeout for Unresponsive Applications in Windows 10

1. Press the Windows key + R to open the Run dialog. Type regedit and hit Enter to launch Registry Editor.

   

2. In the left pane, navigate to the following key. Right-click on the Desktop key and select New -> String Value.
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

   

3. Name the new string “HungAppTimeout“, and then double-click it to modify. Enter a number between 1000 and 20000 in milliseconds and click OK. A low number means the app will be considered as unresponsive shortly.

   

4. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control and create a new string named WaitToKillServiceTimeout, which works the same as “HungAppTimeout”, but it applies to services instead of applications. Don’t set this value below 2000 milliseconds.
5. Close Registry Editor when you’re done. You’ll have to restart Windows for the change to take effect.