Trace boot, shutdown, standby

To get started you need the Windows Performance Tools Kit. Sadly Microsoft removed the stand alone installer from download. To get the installer, you have to install the Windows 7 SDK.

Download the Web Installer and select the Win32 Development Tools and install them. Now go to the path:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0\bin

and look for the 3 files wpt_ia64.msi, wpt_x64.msi and wpt_x86.msi. Now install the MSI which meets your Windows (IA64 if you’re running an Itanium Windows, x64 if you run a 64Bit Windows Vista/7/Server 2008 (R2) or x86 if you run a 32Bit Vista/7/Server 2008).

Now open an elevated command prompt and run the following commands:

For boot tracing:
xbootmgr -trace boot -noPrepReboot -traceFlags BASE+CSWITCH+DRIVERS+POWER -resultPath C:\TEMP

For shutdown tracing:
xbootmgr -trace shutdown -noPrepReboot -traceFlags BASE+CSWITCH+DRIVERS+POWER -resultPath C:\TEMP

For Standby+Resume:
xbootmgr -trace standby -traceFlags BASE+CSWITCH+DRIVERS+POWER -resultPath C:\TEMP

For Hibernate+Resume:
xbootmgr -trace hibernate -traceFlags BASE+CSWITCH+DRIVERS+POWER -resultPath C:\TEMP

replace C:\TEMP with any temp directory on your machine as necessary to store the output files

All of these will shutdown, hibernate, or standby your box, and then reboot to finish tracing. Once Vista does reboot, log back in as necessary and once the countdown timer finishes, you should now have some tracing files in C:\TEMP. If asked, upload or provide the file(s) generated in C:\TEMP (or the directory you chose) on a download share for analysis.

Courtsy: Cluberti