Shut down computer with Windows 2000/XP/2003.

Article keywords: shut down computer, pc shutdown shortcut, restart computer

In this article we will describe some software products wich help us to create hibernate, restart or shutdown shortcut under Windows. All the described software require the modern version of the Windows platform: Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows 2003.

First of all let's remember How to make any windows shortcut. Let's create the shortcut to the Shutdown Lock programm. To create the shortcut, do the following steps.

Right-click an open area on the desktop, point to New, and then click Shortcut.
Locate the Shutdown Lock programm, usual "C:\Program Files\shutdownlock.com\shutdownlock.exe", click it, click Open.
Type a name for the shortcut. If a Finish button appears at the bottom of the dialog box, click it. If a Next button appears at the bottom of the dialog box, click it, click the icon you want to use for the shortcut, and then click Finish.

Please note: if you want to use hotkey with created shortcuts you need to place these shortcuts on the desktop itself, the Quick Launch bar or Start Menu.

Using the Shutdown Lock tool. (Recommended solution)

After installing the Shutdown Lock software the shutdownlock.exe functionality can bve accessed from a command line and from a shortcut. Using shutdownlock.exe it is possible to power off, restart or hibernate computer under Windows platform. For example the following command line
shutdownlock.exe --delay=300 hibernate
will hibernate most Windows 2000 and Windows XP computers in a 5 minutes.

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Using the shutdown.exe utility.

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, and type:
SHUTDOWN /?
For more information please visit the Microsoft KB 317371, "How to Use the Remote Shutdown Tool to Shut Down and Restart a Computer in Windows 2000."

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 5-minutes delay.

For a shortcut to RESTART Windows XP:
SHUTDOWN -r -t 300

For a shortcut to SHUT DOWN Windows XP:
SHUTDOWN -s -t 300

Unfortunately - especially on Windows XP - this option only shuts down Windows. It does not shut down your computer, at least on most hardware.

Using the tsshutdn utility

If you don’t want to use a third-party utility, you may be able to get by with a lesser known utility in Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The native commandline tool tsshutdn.exe was originally designed for shutting down servers, not work stations. It was introduced in Windows 2000, and retained in Windows XP. For more information please visit the Microsoft MSKB 320188, "How to Use the TSSHUTDN Command to Shut Down a Terminal Server in Windows 2000 Terminal Services," and MSKB 243202, "Windows 2000 Terminal Services Session Management Tools."

From a command prompt, type tsshutdn /? for a list of its subcommands and syntax. For example the following command line TSSHUTDN.EXE 0 /DELAY:0 /POWERDOWN will powerdown most Windows 2000 and Windows XP computers, though some (according to correspondent "perris," who first turned me onto this native utility) will get an error message 1702.