Have you ever come to a situation While Shutdown or Restart Windows 10 PC, Windows notifying “This app is preventing shutdown” or “This app is preventing you from restarting or signing out” on your Windows 10 computer? Basically, this screen appears only at a particular time. for example, you are working with a word document, And by mistake, you didn’t save the file and tried to shut down the PC. But sometimes users report

Nothing running on background and all apps closed, But while trying to shutdown/restart windows it results this app is preventing Shutdown. If I walk away before I see this message pop up, my computer does not shut down and it goes back to my desktop. I need to click “Shut down anyway” in order to bypass this, otherwise, it goes back to my desktop screen.

Why This App is Preventing Shutdown Windows 10?

Normally when you shut down your system, Task Host ensures that programs previously running were closed properly to avoid data and program corruption. If due to any reason still any application running on background this will prevent Windows 10 from shutdown with showing following message like, this app is preventing you from restarting/Shutdown. So The reason that you are getting this notification is that the Windows operating system waits for each process to finish before shut down completely.

App Preventing Shutdown/Restart Windows

Technically, it is recommended to close all running programs before you initiate shutdown /reboot Windows PC. However, if you feel that no programs were running Still windows causing App is Preventing Shutdown/Restart.

Run Windows Power troubleshooter from Settings -> Update & Security -> Troubleshoot. Look for Power troubleshooter, Select And Run the troubleshooter to check and fix if any power related bug prevents windows form shutdown. This is optional but sometimes its very helpful.

Disable Fast Startup

Windows 10 fast startup, by default, enabled that pauses the running processes in their existing state instead of closing them, so when the system resumes it’s operations it doesn’t have to re-initiate the programs from scratch, instead, it just restores the processes and resumes it from there. But sometimes this feature cause the issue, stuck push the running processes that result This App is Preventing Shutdown. We recommend once Disable the Fast startup Feature by fallowig steps below and check the problem resolved or not.

• To Disable Fast Startup, Press Windows + R, type powercfg.cpl and click ok to open power options.
• Click on Choose what the power buttons does from the left pane.
• Then choose Change settings that are currently unavailable.
• Click Yes if the User Account Control warning appears.
• Now in the Shutdown settings section, clear the check next to Turn on fast startup (recommended) to disable it.
• Click the Save changes button, And restart windows check there is no more app preventing shutdown windows 10.

Perform Clean Boot

We recommend Start windows Clean boot state to check and make sure any third party app not causing the issue. Its very Simple And easy to perform Clean Boot, To do this 

• Press Windows + R, type msconfig and ok
• This will open System Configuration Window
• Here under the Services tab click and select the Hide all Microsoft services check box, and then tap or click Disable all.

Now Under Startup Tab Click Open Task Manager. This will display all programs run at startup, simply right click then and select Disable.

Now restart windows (If its prevent, then click shutdown/restart anyway). Now when you next time login and try to shutdown/restart windows you may notice Windows shutdown properly. If clean boot helps then you need to enable the services one by one or uninstall recently installed apps to identify which app causing the problem.

Run System File Checker

Again if system files get corrupted, This may cause unnecessary services/applications to run on the background which prevents windows from Shutdown and display message like unknown app preventing shutdown windows 10.

• Simply run the SFC utility to make sure corrupted system files not causing the issue.
• To do this open command prompt as administrator
• Type command sfc /scannow and hit enter key.
• Wait until 100% complete the scanning process,
• After that restart windows and check, the problem resolved or not.

Note: If SFC scan results unable to repair corrupted system files then run the DISM command which scan and repair system image. After that again run SFC utility.

Tweak Windows Registry Editor (Ultimate solution)

And the Ultimate solution, Tweak Windows registry to skip the warning message while shutdown/restart Windows PC.

• Type regedit on start menu search and select it from results to open windows registry Editor window.
• Here first Backup Registry Database, Then navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
• Next in the right pane, right-click on the empty area and select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value and rename it to AutoEndTasks.
• Now double click on AutoEndTasks to open it and then set the Value data to 1 and click on OK button.

That’s all, After making these changes, close registry editor and restart your PC to take effect the changes. Now you can try shutting down your Windows 10 computer with the opened applications or running processes and it shouldn’t throw this app is preventing shutdown Windows 10 error message.

Did these tips help to fix “This App is Preventing Shutdown/Restart Windows 10 Issue”? Let us know on comments below Also Read How To Setup And Configure an FTP server on Windows 10.

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