List Of Shutdown Command Switches
| No Switches | Display information about the shutdown command, same as typing “-?” |
| -i | Display a GUI. It must be the first switch |
| -l | Log off the user (This cannot be used on a remote machine: “-m” switch) |
| -s | Shutdown the computer |
| -r | Restart the computer |
| -a | Cancels a system shutdown already in progress |
| -f | Forces running applications to close without warning |
| -m \\computername | Instruct a remote computer to shutdown (can be used with the restart & abort switches) |
| -t xx | Set a given time for shutdown, in seconds |
| -c “comment” | Shutdown comment (maximum of 127 characters) |
| -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) |
How To Use Shutdown Switches:
You don’t have to use them all, but the switches you do use must be in the following order:
shutdown [-i | -l | -s | -r | -a] [-f] [-m \\computername] [-t xx] [-c "comment"] [-d up:xx:yy]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!