What does "Stopping Services" mean on Windows PC when shutting down?

[iHorseHead]

Hey!
My work PC says "Stopping services" when I shut it down. What does it mean?
My regular PC has no such message.

 

[velocityg4]

It's just shutting down system services that are running. The only reason you see it is because something is hanging up the shutdown long enough to prompt the message.

So, you know the computer is indeed shutting down. As impatient twits will keep hitting shutdown or pull the power cord. If they don't think the computer is shutting down.

 

[maflynn]

Type services.msc in the search or run dialog box, there you will a large number of services some running some not. When you see that message as mentioned above, its taking a bit longer then windows expected and just provides an informational message. Much like when its trying to shut down a running program when you're either rebooting or shutting down completely (provided you didn't manually close all apps)

 

[Janichsan]

Type services.msc in the search or run dialog box, there you will a large number of services some running some not. ...

You can also check them in the Task Manager: when you click on "More Details", there's a dedicated tab for the services.

 

[maflynn]

You can also check them in the Task Manager: when you click on "More Details", there's a dedicated tab for the services.

Oh I know, but I manage my services through the mmc snapin, so for me, the services.msc is always present in the run history.

 

[LordVic]

Services is just Microsoft's "name" for TSR's, Daemons and other programs that are running usually headless in the background without interactivity.

when you boot your computer, Windows goes through a list of services set to autostart and starts them usually before you login. And when you go to shut down, Windows will try to safely shut down services before powering off. Also why sometimes windows shut down seems to be slow. The more services you have, and the larger those services footprints, the longer they often take to start up or shut down.

in reality, All Operating systems have these background tasks and services that operate without your interactivity.