If you're like me, you have a bunch of development servers or virtual images running Windows Server 2003 in one of several flavors.  The brief description of my problem and solution is that when I go to shut down or restart my server(s) several times a day due to OS tweaks and several installs and/or service packs, I get this questionnaire asking for a reason.  The simple answer is usually "None of your business!" but it never matters what I type.  So I asked around and found out the simple way to take care of this annoyance.

Here is what it looks like by default...

Here's what we want to see.
 

The way to correct this is very simple, yet not intuitive.

First: Goto Start...Run...and type: gpedit.msc, the click OK.

Second: in the Group Policy Object Editor navigate to:
Computer Configuration...Administrative Templates...System...
and select Display Shutdown Event Tracker properties, or double click.
set it to Disabled and click OK.

Now try to shutdown or restart.