Disabling The Shutdown Event Tracker

A new feature in Windows Server 2003 is the "Shutdown Event Tracker" which requires you to provide a reason for each manually-requested shutdown. This information then gets written into the event log.
If your server is not mission-critical, you may want to turn this feature off.

To turn off the Shutdown Event Tracker, navigate to the following key in your registry:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Reliability
(You may need to create the Reliability key)

Insert or change a value with the following:

Data Type: DWORD
Value Name: ShutdownReasonOn
Value: 0

The change will take place immediately