In a regular Windows Server 2003 shutdown process, the operating system has a time-out period during which the service control manager (SCM) shuts down services. If the SCM does not finish shutting down all the services within the time-out period, the operating system continues to shut down without waiting. The time-out period is specified in the WaitToKillServiceTimeout registry entry. The default time-out period lasts 20 seconds.
However, if you shut down a computer in a remote console session, the operating system continues to shut down regardless of the time-out period. In this case, the operating system continues to shut down several seconds after the SCM sends a shutdown notification to the service. Then, the NTFS driver begins to shut down as part of the system shutdown process. The NTFS driver begins to shut down earlier than expected when the service is still shutting down. The service may access disk resources during the shutdown process. A deadlock is likely to occur between the NTFS shutdown operation and the disk resource access.