Windows Tip: Shutdown Your Computer With The Command Prompt

Windows Tip: Shutdown Your Computer With The Command Prompt

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!