Want to be able to click a button on your desktop to shutdown your computer instead of having to click “Start -> Turn Off Computer -> Turn Off” every single time? All you have to do is create a shortcut on your desktop that points to shutdown.exe with the right switches. When you have finished it could look something like this…
or 
Creating a Shutdown button:
Right click the desktop and select new -> shortcut and the Create Shortcut wizard will appear. Click the browse button and browse to C:\WINDOWS\system32\shutdown.exe and click OK…
Now add “-s -t 0″ (without quotes, zero not the letter o, and spaces between -s & -t & 0) to the end of the text in the location box as shown below…
Now click next and finish. You will now have a functioning but ugly shutdown button on your desktop…
To make it look nicer rename the shortcut then right click, select properties, and select Change Icon to select a better icon.
Create a Restart button:
It might seem a little strange but Windows XP restarts using the same shutdown.exe file. To create a restart button follow the same steps above but use a -r switch instead of a -s switch…
After creating both shortcuts, renaming them and changing the icons, you should have something like this…
or
Shutdown.exe switches: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/317371
6 responses so far ↓
1 ViniMan // May 24, 2008 at 4:39 am
On that MS support website stands a description of “msg”. For making a message appear while logging out, do you know how to do that? And how to create a Stand-By shortcut button?
2 blogbookmark.com // May 26, 2008 at 1:49 am
How To Create Shutdown and Restart Buttons on your desktop…
Want to be able to click a button on your desktop to shutdown your computer instead of having to click Start -> Turn Off Computer -> Turn Off every single time? All you have to do is create a shortcut on your desktop that points to shutdown.exe…
3 Blogsvine // May 26, 2008 at 1:54 am
How To Create Shutdown and Restart Buttons on your desktop…
Want to be able to click a button on your desktop to shutdown your computer instead of having to click Start -> Turn Off Computer -> Turn Off every single time? All you have to do is create a shortcut on your desktop that points to shutdown.exe…
4 jason // May 26, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Saw your post on LinkMarker and I must say this is the something I’ve never thought of, am gonna give this a try. :)
5 rsfeller // Aug 22, 2008 at 2:47 pm
because it’s so hard to hit the start button!?!?!
6 brett // Aug 31, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Hi ViniMan thanks for commenting. To show a comment while shutting down or restarting, add a “-c” switch like this…
%windir%\system32\shutdown.exe -s -c “goodbye cruel world!” -t 5
Notice I have changed the -t value from 0 to 5. This will cause shutdown.exe to wait 5 seconds before executing, otherwise you won’t have time to read the message.
To put the system into standby you need to use rundll32.exe so the shortcut target would be…
C:\WINDOWS\System32\rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState Standby
Which only leaves logoff and hibernate so I will list them here too…
Logoff:
C:\WINDOWS\System32\shutdown.exe -l
Hibernate:
C:\WINDOWS\System32\rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState Hibernate
Leave a Comment