If you’ve ever wanted to create a shortcut on your desktop to make shutting down/restarting/locking/hibernating/ or sleeping your computer an easier task you’ve come to the right place. After this tutorial you will also have the ability to add extra parameters to the shortcut to force close running process. You may even want to learn how to shutdown a remote computer (Another Windows computer on your network/domain).
If you right click anywhere on your desktop you will see “New” in the drop down menu. You will want to navigate to “New” and then “New Shortcut” Immediately below you will see the following shortcuts you can copy directly into that text box to do certain things in Windows 7. In the second section you will learn how to add extra parameters to additional things with your shortcuts.
Section 1: General Shortcuts
Shortcut 1: Shutdown Computer
Copy this shortcut: Shutdown.exe
Shortcut 2: Restart Computer
Copy this shortcut: Shutdown.exe -r
Shortcut 3: Lock Workstation
Copy this shortcut: Rundll32.exe User32.dll,LockWorkStation
Shortcut 4: Hibernate Computer
Copy this shortcut: rundll32.exe PowrProf.dll,SetSuspendState
Shortuct 5: Sleep Computer
Copy this shortcut: rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState 0,1,0
Section 2: Extra Shutdown Switch Parameters
Simple add onto your shortuct one of the following parameters
For Example: “Shutdown.exe -r” This command as shown above shuts the computer down and then restarts it. See the -r parameter? This is for restart. Shutdown.exe would simply turn off the PC with no restart.
-l The -l parameter simple logs off the user.
-g The -g parameter will shutdown and restart the computer
-p This parameter turns off the local computer (I like to use this one when i’m logged into it via remote desktop
-r This parameter adds on a restart command (As shown above in the example.)
-h This parameter will add on a hibernate command (For example: “shutdown.exe -h” ) This command will shutdown the computer in a “hibernate” state
-f This parameter will force all running programs to close (Caution: This will not ask you to save
-c This parameter will allow you to give a reason to the user as to which the PC is shutting down (For Example: “Shutdown.exe -e “System Shutting down for maintenance””)
-t The -t parameter allows you to set the time in which the PC will shutdown
-m \\computer name This parameter will allow you to shutdown a computer on your network within the same domain just specify the computer name
Created: 9-4-2010
Updated 2-18-2011