How-To

Windows Shutdown Event Tracker Monitors System Reboots

If you’re an OCD Windows power user and rarely shutdown or restart your computer (like me), you might want to keep track of the reason why you’re doing it.

If you’re an OCD Windows power user and rarely shut down or restart your computer (like me), you might want to keep track of the reason why you’re doing it. It’s easy to do by enabling Shutdown Event Tracker, which allows you to input why you’re shutting down and track the reasons via Event Viewer.

Enable Shutdown Event Tracker

Update: Shutdown Event Tracker only Applies To Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2; however, Windows 7 is no longer supported by Microsoft. And Windows 8.1 is reaching the end of mainstream support. This is what Microsoft says about 8.1:

Windows 8.1 reached the end of Mainstream Support on January 9, 2018, and will reach end of Extended Support on January 10, 2023. With the general availability of Windows 8.1, customers on Windows 8 had until January 12, 2016, to move to Windows 8.1 to remain supported.

Shutdown Event Tracker is a feature in Server 2003 for IT admins to keep track of why servers are rebooted. But it can also be enabled on your home version of Windows 7 and above.

Note: The following process uses Group Policy Editor which is not available in Home versions of Windows. Scroll down further on how to hack the Registry in Home versions of Windows to get the same thing.

To enable it, open Start in Windows 7 or Run in Windows 8.1 and type gpedit.msc to open Group Policy Editor. Once open, go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System. Then in the right panel, double-click on Display Shutdown Event Tracker.

Group Policy Editor Windows

Then set it to Enabled, and under the Options section, select Always, and closeout of Group Policy Editor.

Enable Always

The next time you shut down your restart your Windows 7 computer, the following windows will come up. Windows 7  allows you to leave a comment on why you’re doing it.

comment

Windows 8.1 doesn’t allow you to leave a comment, but it does have several planned and unplanned reasons.

Windows 8 Event Tracker

Regedit Method for Windows Home Edition

If you’re running a Home version of Windows and want to enable Shutdown Event Tracker, you will need to tweak the Registry to get the Shutdown Event Tracker feature.

Note: Since this requires hacking the Registry, back it up first or set a Restore Point.

Open the Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > Software > Policies > Microsoft > Windows NT > Reliability. Then double click on ShutdownReasonUI and ShutdownReasonUI and change the Value Data to 1; if you don’t see that in your registry, just create the key and values.

Windows Home Pro Registry

Closeout of Registry Editor – no reboot is necessary – then the next time you shut down or restart, you’ll get the same Shutdown Event Tracker shown above in professional versions of Windows. For example, in the shot below, you can see I am running Windows 7 Home Premium.

Reghack home premium

1 Comment

1 Comment

  1. Brian S.

    October 2, 2015 at 9:42 pm

    Hi,

    Thanks for this. But I have Windows Home Premium, but the Windows NT part of the registry* includes only Terminal Services and Windows File Protection. There’s no reliability directory. Did something change in Windows since publication of this post? I’ve seen the same information elsewhere, too. Any suggestions? And yes, I am a bit OCD. (1st sentence of this post) :)

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > Software > Policies > Microsoft > Windows NT >

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