How to turn off the Shutdown Event Tracker in Windows 2003?

If you have no use for the Shutdown Event Tracker, you can safely disable it.

To do so, open the Group Policy Object Editor Console. Click on Start, then Run, and type gpedit.msc and press OK.

Navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System, and in the right hand pane, select the “Display Shutdown Event Tracker” setting.

Double click this setting to open the Properties page. You are now given the option to leave it in a default state of Not Configured, or you can set it to Always Enabled, Enabled for Servers/Workstations (Windows XP Pro) or Disabled.

Note:When you enable the Group Policy for Server only, the Shutdown Event Tracker appears when you shut down a computer running Windows 2003, whereas for Workstation only, the Shutdown Event Tracker appears when a computer running Windows XP Professional is shut down.

After you make the change to the Group Policy, open the Command Prompt (Either through Start > Programs or Start > Run > cmd.exe) and run

gpupdate /force

to refresh the policy and have your settings be applied straight away. Alternatively, you can just restart the machine.

When you next attempt to shutdown or restart the machine, the Shutdown Event Tracker will no longer be visible and the normal shutdown prompt will appear.