XP: Easy Shortcut or Command-Line Shutdown

Contributed by davak September 18, 2003  
Tagged: Windows

With Windows XP one can easily shutdown from a command line or from a shortcut.

Shutdown.exe is an excellent addition to the XP installation. This program allows you to restart or shutdown your local or remote computers.

shutdown -s will shutdown your local system, for example. You can also insert this into batch files or shortcuts for more powerful uses.

The Windows help on shutdown.exe can be found below:

Usage: shutdown [-i | -l | -s | -r | -a] [-f] [-m computername] [-t xx] [-c "comment"] [-d up:xx:yy]

No args Display this message (same as -?)
-i Display GUI interface, must be the first option
-l Log off (cannot be used with -m option)
-s Shutdown the computer
-r Shutdown and restart the computer
-a Abort a system shutdown
-m computername Remote computer to shutdown/restart/abort
-t xx Set timeout for shutdown to xx seconds
-c “comment” Shutdown comment (maximum of 127 characters)
-f Forces running applications to close without warning
-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)