Can you disable the start screen completely?


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So I don't use the windows start screen ever.  I use an application for the start menu until Microsoft updates 8.1 and puts their start menu in.  

 

I've taken notice when I turn off my PC, the screen shows up and says there is an app that's holding up the process and I have to click "end" or whatever (I don't have it infront of me to write it word for word).  But I don't use the start screen so those apps are useless to me.  Can I disable/remove them all or just disable the whole thing?

 

Edit:

 

It also doesn't list the name of the app.  

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Should figure out which application's holding up the shutdown process.. a badly written program/service can block a shutdown, which will result in Windows asking you what to do with it giving you the chance to not lose data.  Not unique to 8.x in any way.

 

As far as the start screen goes, yea there's multiple solutions to completely disabling it so you never see it.  For example Classic Shell, click click done.  You can even remove the "Pin to start screen" context menu entry if you want too.. I do that on my 7 desktops too so I don't accidentally pin things to the wrong start menu.

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It doesn't say which app is doing it though.  It shows a regular thumbnail with no name.  I'll check out those links.  

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Obviously, first thing is to check for malware. Very often, if you get a screen telling you "Closing apps and shutting down" with a list consisting of a sole generic icon and no name underneath (just "This app is preventing shutdown"), it is a stuck background process, and is often malware if there is no name. Does anything running in the background other than malware could cause the shutdown to be halted (torrenting app, PC optimization suite)?

 

As far as I remember, new Windows 8 apps cannot prevent the system from shutting down; Windows 8 has a great amount of power over the execution of new XAML apps (they are suspended and exited on-the-fly), so you wouldn't have to force-close a Windows 8 app on shutdown. What I'm saying is that despite seeing a full-screen message that seems to be a Metro alert, it is simply because Microsoft harmonized system error messages and "Metro-ified" them: very likely you would have the same error under Windows 7 (with the semi-translucent "1 program still needs to close" full-screen interface). The culprit is therefore a background Win32/Win64 program.

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Obviously, first thing is to check for malware. Very often, if you get a screen telling you "Closing apps and shutting down" with a list consisting of a sole generic icon and no name underneath (just "This app is preventing shutdown"), it is a stuck background process, and is often malware if there is no name. Does anything running in the background other than malware could cause the shutdown to be halted (torrenting app, PC optimization suite)?

 

As far as I remember, new Windows 8 apps cannot prevent the system from shutting down; Windows 8 has a great amount of power over the execution of new XAML apps (they are suspended and exited on-the-fly), so you wouldn't have to force-close a Windows 8 app on shutdown. What I'm saying is that despite seeing a full-screen message that seems to be a Metro alert, it is simply because Microsoft harmonized system error messages and "Metro-ified" them: very likely you would have the same error under Windows 7 (with the semi-translucent "1 program still needs to close" full-screen interface). The culprit is therefore a background Win32/Win64 program.

 

None of my used apps are opened when I shut down.  There isn't any optimization software on it either.  Eset, and Malwarebytes came back clean when I checked ( i originally thought that might be it), but all clean.  

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Just out of curiosity, how can you be sure this has something to do with the start screen? it sounds like you might be focusing on the wrong thing here if you can't be sure what this application is? I understand that nothing may appear open, but it doesn't mean something you were running has a background process that has failed to end?

 

For example I'm not sure if this still happens in the latest office, but Outlook in older versions would appear closed but in the background it would still be shutting things down completely invisable to the user.

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Just out of curiosity, how can you be sure this has something to do with the start screen? it sounds like you might be focusing on the wrong thing here if you can't be sure what this application is? I understand that nothing may appear open, but it doesn't mean something you were running has a background process that has failed to end?

 

For example I'm not sure if this still happens in the latest office, but Outlook in older versions would appear closed but in the background it would still be shutting things down completely invisable to the user.

 

 

Is there any way to find out what it is since it doesn't show its name?

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None of my used apps are opened when I shut down.  There isn't any optimization software on it either.  Eset, and Malwarebytes came back clean when I checked ( i originally thought that might be it), but all clean.  

 

If you are positive it cannot be malware, it could very well be a driver, or something packaged with a driver: ATI cards for instance have problems with the Catalyst Control Center hanging at shutdown, sometimes touchpad drivers can be responsible as well.

 

Finding the culprit is going to be the tedious part: your best bet would be to terminate manually every non-Microsoft program or service using the Task Manager before shutting Windows down (use the Details tab -- and since the shutdown screen shows a program with no icon, pay extra attention to all programs in the Details tab that have a generic app icon), narrowing it down program by program to find out which one hangs the shutdown process. Cancel shutdown, terminate one extra app, until the shutdown process doesn't hang anymore.

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Is there any way to find out what it is since it doesn't show its name?

I suspect it won't get you anywhere but have you checked the Event Viewer Logs? It may show the hung application amongst the other shutdown proceedures. 

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Just out of curiosity, how can you be sure this has something to do with the start screen? it sounds like you might be focusing on the wrong thing here if you can't be sure what this application is? I understand that nothing may appear open, but it doesn't mean something you were running has a background process that has failed to end?

 

For example I'm not sure if this still happens in the latest office, but Outlook in older versions would appear closed but in the background it would still be shutting things down completely invisable to the user.

 

Indeed. The "a program is preventing your computer from shutting down" dialog has nothing necessarily to do with start screen apps as far as I know (unless you can prove otherwise by telling us which app it's referring to... take a photo of the screen perhaps?), it's usually referring to a Win32 app. I get the same thing with Origin on my PC. For about 2 seconds, I'm waiting for Origin to close before my PC shuts down.

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