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Shutdown & Restart Shortcuts For Windows XP & Windows 2000

This document provides instructions for shutting down or restarting Windows computers using commands in the Command Prompt or shortcuts. It explains that the SHUTDOWN command allows specifying restart or shutdown along with options like time delays. For full system shutdown including powering off the computer, the document recommends using a freeware utility called Shutdown.exe which supports options like shutdown, restart, and hibernate without time delays. It also lists all the available switches for the SHUTDOWN command and provides examples of using them to immediately shutdown or restart the local machine or a remote computer.

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156 views5 pages

Shutdown & Restart Shortcuts For Windows XP & Windows 2000

This document provides instructions for shutting down or restarting Windows computers using commands in the Command Prompt or shortcuts. It explains that the SHUTDOWN command allows specifying restart or shutdown along with options like time delays. For full system shutdown including powering off the computer, the document recommends using a freeware utility called Shutdown.exe which supports options like shutdown, restart, and hibernate without time delays. It also lists all the available switches for the SHUTDOWN command and provides examples of using them to immediately shutdown or restart the local machine or a remote computer.

Uploaded by

sivasankar_raj
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© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Shutdown & Restart Shortcuts for

Windows XP & Windows 2000


Windows 2000 (with the Resource Kit installed) and Windows XP (natively) have an
actual shutdown command that can be launched from a command prompt — and
which, therefore, also can be launched from a shortcut. To see all available options for
this command, click Start, click Run, type CMD, and click OK. Then, in the box that
appears, type:

SHUTDOWN /?

This command starts a 30-second countdown for a shutdown or restart, which permits
you to abort it (with a shutdown -a command). It you want the command to execute,
use the -t flag, which lets you set the time lapse in seconds. The examples below use a
1-second delay.

For a shortcut to RESTART Windows XP:


SHUTDOWN -r -t 01

For a shortcut to SHUT DOWN Windows


XP:
SHUTDOWN -s -t 01

Unfortunately — especially on Windows XP — this option only shuts down Windows. It


does not shut down your computer, at least on most hardware. For that, on Win XP (and
for most Win 2000 users also), I recommend the freeware utility Shutdown.exe (not to
be confused with the Windows utility by the same name) by MS-MVP Andrej Budja. I’ve
seen several shutdown utilities recommended, but this is the only one that I’ve seen
actually shut down Windows XP and then powerdown the computer behind it. For more
information on the tool, see here. After you place this utility in the root folder of C:, the
commands for a shutdown, restart, or hibernate (respectively), each without a time
delay, would be shutdown -u -t 0 for shutdown, shutdown -r -t 0 for restart, and
shutdown -h -t 0 for hibernate.
Windows Tip: Shutdown Your Computer With The Command Prompt
Written By Saman Sadeghi, January 14th, 2007
231,023 views page views

Learn how to shutdown a Windows computer via the Command Prompt. I’ll show you
how to schedule a shutdown at a specific time with the Task Scheduler and also how to
chance a shutdown in progress.

ShareThis

This is one of my favorite tricks, shutting down my Windows XP machine with one simple
line of code!

This might not seem necessary since the power button is tucked neatly inside the Start
Menu, but this trick has a few more uses. Not only can you use this on your machine,
but on network machines as well – as long as you have administrative access! You can
also restart machines, set comments (the reason for the shutdown), specify time and
more!

List Of Shutdown Command Switches


No Switches Display information about the shutdown command, same as typing “-?”

-i Display a GUI. It must be the first switch

-l Log off the user (This cannot be used on a remote machine: “-m” switch)

-s Shutdown the computer

-r Restart the computer

-a Cancels a system shutdown already in progress

-f Forces running applications to close without warning

-m Instruct a remote computer to shutdown (can be used with the restart & abort
\\computername switches)

-t xx Set a given time for shutdown, in seconds

-c “comment” Shutdown comment (maximum of 127 characters)

-d [u] [p]:xx:yy The reason code for the shutdown:


u is the user code
p is a planned shutdown code
xx is the major reason code (positive integer less than 256)
yy is the minor reason code (positive integer less than 65536)

How To Use Shutdown Switches:

You don’t have to use them all, but the switches you do use must be in the following order:

shutdown [-i | -l | -s | -r | -a] [-f] [-m \\computername] [-t xx] [-c


"comment"] [-d up:xx:yy]

How To:
Open the command prompt: Windows Key + R then type the command below and hit
OK:

cmd

This will open the command prompt. Now we can play!

Note: You could type the shutdown command directly into the Run dialog. I don’t advise
this. If there is a typo or error, you won’t know. There is no information given!

Shutdown Local Machine


This only takes a couple of keystrokes. Type the code below and hit OK:

shutdown -s

“shutdown” tells the computer what command we want to execute and the “-s” switch
tells it what to do, which is to shutdown!

Specify Time
shutdown -s -t 60

Now we have added the “-t” switch and a variable, which in this case is “60″. This
number is the number of seconds before the computer is shutdown. A dialog will open
and display a count down timer!

Give Us Some Info!


shutdown -s -t 120 -c "You better finish, because I shut you down foo!"

The “-c” switch will allow you to give the user some information for the reason of the
shutdown.
Shutdown A Remote Computer
shutdown -s -m \\desktop -t 45

I really like this one! The “-m” switch will allow you to shutdown a remote machine, in
this case, a computer named “desktop”. For this to work, you must have administrative
access to the computer! To see of you do, hit Windows Key + R then type the
computer’s name, i.e.:

\\desktop

If you can connect to it, you will be asked to log into the machine with a user name and
password. Once confirmed, a window will open displaying the directories available to
you. Now you know you can shut it down remotely.

Cancel Shutdown
Let’s say that you need to cancel a shutdown in progress. Go to the computer in
question, hit Windows Key + R then type command below:

shutdown -a

This will abort the shutdown, assuming there is a counter and it hasn’t reached zero yet!
Faster Shutdowns Using the Run Dialog

Reader Eric writes in with a


tip to eliminate hangs and
speed up the shutdown
process in Windows without
installing any extra software.

Whenever I tried to shutdown my work laptop it would take almost


five minutes. Five minutes! Since I work in a completely locked-
down environment I couldn't look to any third party applications for
help. Entering the following shutdown command in the run dialog
speeds up my shutdown time dramatically.
shutdown -f -t 0

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