WINDOWS SHUTDOWN & RESTART CENTER
SHORTCUTS TO SHUTDOWN &
RESTART WINDOWS 9x & XP
Last updated February 21, 2003
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You can create desktop shortcuts to shutdown Windows, or restart Windows, with a single click. You can put these shortcuts anyplace you like — on the desktop itself, the Quick Launch bar, your Start Menu — wherever.
To make a new shortcut, right-click on an empty part of the desktop (or inside a folder). Select New, then Shortcut. A “wizard” will pop up to guide you through the rest of the process. You will have to provide a command line, and then a name. The name can be anything you want.
For Windows 9x, there are two sets of commands you can use to accomplish these tasks: The Short Version, and the Long Version. Both are given below. (Only the Short Version works in Win95.) A quite different method is then given for use with Windows XP.
The shortcut command line should be as follows:
For a shortcut to RESTART Windows:
C:\WINDOWS\RUNDLL.EXE user.exe,exitwindowsexec
For a shortcut to SHUT DOWN Windows:
C:\WINDOWS\RUNDLL32.EXE user,exitwindows
The command line should be as follows:
C:\WINDOWS\RUNDLL32 SHELL32.DLL,SHExitWindowsEx n
Where n is one of the following values, depending on the task you want to accomplish:
n=0 LOGOFF: Shuts down all running processes, logs the user off, then restarts the Windows shell. (Same as Logoff on the Start Menu.) n=1 SHUTDOWN: Shuts down the system to a point at which it is safe to turn off the power. All file buffers have been flushed to disk, and all running processes have stopped. n=2 REBOOT: Shuts down the system, then restarts it. (Same as Start Menu | Shutdown | Restart.) n=4 FORCE: Forces all processes to terminate — in effect, shuts down all running programs. When this flag is set, Windows does not query running applications to inform them that Windows is shutting down. This can cause the applications to lose data, therefore, you should only use this flag in an emergency. n=8 POWEROFF: Exits Windows, then turns off the computer’s power (provided the computer supports the power-off feature). n=-1 RESTART EXPLORER: Quickly closes Explorer (i.e., the Windows desktop), then lets it restore itself.
These values are additive, in the event you want to do two of them at once. There are varying reports of success with some of these options. For example, inconsistent behavior reported with option 8 may indicate a different behavior with the powerdown system on a particular computer. The solution for this usually is to request both a shutdown and a poweroff by using n=9 (adding the 1 and 8). (Tip from MS-MVP Tom Porterfield.)
This command can also be called from the 137367">RunOnce registry entry (which means these could be written into Registry files as one means of execution).
Additionally, there is a command (which can be run from a shortcut, batch file, or command prompt) runonce.exe -q, which restarts the computer after a 15 second delay. There are no other options when using this command line, and it cannot be called from the RunOnce registry key.
Windows XP has 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 /?
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, this option only shuts down Windows. It does not shut down your computer, at least on most hardware. For that, on Win XP (and possibly on Win 2000) I recommend the freeware utility Shutdown.exe (not to be confused with the Windows XP 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 or restart (respectively), each without a time delay, would be shutdown -u -t 0 for shutdown and shutdown -r -t 0 for restart.
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. See 320188" target="_blank">MSKB 320188, “How to Use the TSSHUTDN Command to Shut Down a Terminal Server in Windows 2000 Terminal Services,” and 243202" target="_blank">MSKB 243202, “Windows 2000 Terminal Services Session Management Tools.” From a command prompt, type tsshutdn /? for a list of its subcommands and syntax. A command line of C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\TSSHUTDN.EXE 0 /DELAY:0 /POWERDOWN will powerdown most Windows 2000 and Windows XP computers, though some (according to correspondent “perris,” who first turned us onto this native utility) will get an error message 1702.
Another solution for Windows XP users involves using the power switch on your computer — but only after you’ve set it to shutdown Windows first! If you poweroff your computer without shutting down Windows (and letting your applications save their data and close, if necessary), you invite a whole lot of serious problems! The correct way to do this is: After a fresh reboot of the computer, in the Windows XP Control Panel click Power Options. Click the Advanced tab. In the Power Buttons section, under “When I press the power button on my computer,” select “Shutdown.” (If this is not visible on your Advanced tab, then your computer does not have the hardware capability to do this job correctly, or the capability is disabled in CMOS.) Click Apply. This sets your computer so that when you press the hardware power button it will first do a proper shutdown of Windows, and then poweroff the computer.