How to: Create Shutdown and Reboot Shortcuts

To create shortcuts you need to right-click the area where you wan the shortcut, for example Desktop, and chose New > Shortcut. The Create Shortcut Wizard will appear. Now in the input field that ask for the name of the application type: “shutdown” (without the quotes). You just created a shutdown shortcut, if you double click the shortcut your computer will shutdown.

This may not seem like much but you can ad other options/switches to the shortcut making it very versatile. Here are the options you can use when creating a shortcut:

-s : shuts down the computer

-r : restarts the computer

-l : logs of the current user

-t : indicates the delay, in seconds, before the computer is restarted/shutdown/logged of

-c : Displays a message in the shutdown/restart window that appears. The message needs to be enclosed in quotation marks and you can use a maximum of 127 characters.

-f : Forces any application to close instantly.

-a : Aborts the shutdown / restart command.

Here are some examples (remember that the text in bold is the text that you need to enter in the input box when creating a shortcut):

shutdown -s -t 05 -c “Computer is shutting down in 5 seconds”
This one will shutdown the computer in 5 seconds and also display the “Computer is shutting down in 5 seconds” message.

shutdown -r -t 03 -c “Computer is restarting in 3 seconds”
This one will restart the computer in 3 seconds and also prompt you with the “Computer is restarting in 3 seconds” message.

shutdown -s -t 00 -f
This one will create a shortcut that will shutdown the computer really fast with no delay and no messages also forcing all opened applications to close.

shutdown -r -t 00 -f
This shortcut will restart your computer with no delay and no messages also closing all opened applications.

shutdown -l -t 03 “Logging of in 3 seconds”
This shortcut will log off the current user and also display the “Logging of in 3 seconds message”.

Now don't forget the very useful -a switch/option. This is one of those options that can really help you but you never heard about. The -a option stands for ABORT and if used will cancel any current issued shutdown command.
Say for example you created a shortcut to shutdown your computer in 5 seconds but after you pressed it you remembered that there is something more you need to work on your computer.
By creating an ABORT shortcut you will be able to cancel the current shutdown/restart command.

shutdown -a
This shortcut will cancel any previous shutdown/restart command.

You can also customize the look of your newly created shortcuts by changing its ICON. Right-click a shortcut and from the menu chose: Properties > Change Icon.

You can also drag and drop the new shortcuts onto your quick launch tool bar for easy and fast access.

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