[ Thanks to kiterunner for this link.
]
“Microsoft just received confirmation of a patent that
hands the company the intellectual property of shutting an
operating system down.“I can’t quite recall how often Microsoft has talked about a
faster way to shut down its operating system. It is part of the
pitch of virtually every new operating system and it has remained
an annoyance that it can take quite some time until the software in
fact closes running applications and the operating system
itself.“In August 2005, Microsoft filed for a patent to more
efficiently shut down its Windows operating system as well as other
operating systems, including Apple’s Mac OS X, and override running
programs that may prevent Windows from closing.”