Thanks for that Spurlash2, I hadn't found that, the bit about crashed processes is interesting as it is almost always about the same length of time taken to close it.

Why are you worried about this? I get it too from time to time (usually the sound subsystem).

Some processes occasionally take longer than usual to respond to the 'term' signal and the system may (as in your case) warn you of this.

In shutdown after a bit the system will get bored waiting for a process to terminate and kill it anyway.

kill (command) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mac :ok:

I'm not, I'm also perfectly aware of why it does it , I asked the question because I felt there ought to be a way of finding out which program it was, it was asked purely as an exercise in getting windows to give up the required information in the hope that someone here might know.

...and a bit more
 

I use the following Registry hack to shorten my shutdown times in XP/Vista and 7. On my Vista machine I have the WaitToKillServiceTimeout set to 20000, (20 seconds) You can have it as a smaller time, but this may cause snags.

The Hack for Vista and W7.
1.Click on Start.
2.Open Run command and type regedit.
3.In the regedit go at the following Location:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control
4.In the right pane, right click on WaitToKillServiceTimeout and click on Modify.
5.Type in a number between 2000-20000 (2-20 seconds) and click on OK.
6.Now Close regedit.
7.Restart your Pc.

The XP link from MS HERE, which talks about increasing the timeout, but gives some extra info on the subject.
and a link HERE to a short BB discussion on it.

My W7 kit shuts down in 10 seconds.

I had thought about doing that but decided that the extra time taken wasn't that much of a problem. But thanks for the post.