You may have seen such messages when your Windows is starting or shutting down. These are Verbose Status Messages.

Verbose status messages can be very helpful when you are debugging or troubleshooting certain Windows problems, including a slow startup, shutdown, logon, or logoff behavior. If your Windows is just not shutting down, verbose status messages may tell you where exactly or at which stage, your Windows is getting ‘stuck’. There are some regular messages you will always see even when verbose messages are not enabled, like Applying your personal settings or Applying computer settings. But when you enable verbose status messages, you will see additional status messages which will help you while debugging or troubleshooting. The Verbose Messages you may see during startup could include:

Starting WindowsStarting Group Policy ServiceRPCSS is startingStarting Windows Update ServiceApplying your personal settingsApplying computer settingsPlease wait for the User profile to loadPreparing your Desktop

During the shutdown you would probably see messages like:

Shutting down “application”Stopping Group Policy ServiceStopping Windows UpdatePlease wait for Group Policy ServicePlease wait for Windows Update ServiceNotifying services that Windows is shutting downWaiting for machine group policies to finishStopping ServicesShutting DownWindows is preparing to shut down the computer.

Enable Verbose or Highly Detailed Status Messages in Windows 11

If you wish, you can enable or disable the verbose status messages by using the Group Policy Object Editor or by editing the Windows Registry, or by using Ultimate Windows Tweaker.

Enable Highly Detailed Status Messages using Group Policy

In Windows 11/10/8

In Windows 11/10/8 this setting is named Display highly detailed status messages.

Thanks for pointing out the change in the name 3ICE.

In Windows 7

If your edition of Windows has the Group Policy Editor, you can type gpedit.msc in start search and hit Enter. Navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System. Now in the right pane, double-click on Verbose vs normal status messages. This setting is designed for sophisticated users that require this information and directs the system to display highly detailed status messages. If you enable this setting, the system displays status messages that reflect each step in the process of starting, shutting down, logging on, or logging off the system. Do note that if the “Remove Boot / Shutdown / Logon / Logoff status messages” setting is enabled, this setting will be ignored.

Enable Verbose Messages editing Registry

If your edition of Windows, does not have the Group Policy Editor, you may enable verbose status messages by editing the Windows Registry. To do so, type regedit in start search and hit Enter. Now navigate to the following registry key: Now right-click in the right pane and create a new New, DWORD Value verbosestatus. Give it a value 1. This will enable Verbose Status Messages. To disable these messages give it a value 0 or simply delete the created key. Exit Registry.

Enable Verbose Status Messages quickly using Ultimate Windows Tweaker

If you don’t want to get into all this, simply download and use our freeware Ultimate Windows Tweaker. This tool will let you enable or disable Verbose Status Messages with a click.

You will find the setting under the User Accounts and UAC tab. You may click here to download it. Once again, Windows will not display the verbose status messages if there exists this key and its value is set to 1: Enabling Verbose Status Messages may increase your startup and shutdown times, so you may not want to have this setting enabled permanently. You may want to read this post if your Windows does not shut down. Also, check out how to enable the Shutdown Event Tracker.