Tip of the Day - How to use the "shutdown" command to shutdown or restart your local or remote computer.

If you have ever been in a situation where you needed to quickly shutdown or restart your local or remote machine, this Windows tool is for you. Here are some steps of the usage. See this link for the KB article from Microsoft - http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=317371

Open a command prompt or type this information in the Run dialog box to run this command.

LOCAL MACHINE – NOT ALL THAT CAN BE DONE.

To Shutdown a local machine:

• shutdown –s

To Shutdown a local machine and force applications to close:

• shutdown –s –f

To Shutdown a local machine with a timed delay in seconds:

• shutdown –s –t xx

To Shutdown a local machine with a timed delay in seconds and a comment:

• shutdown –s –t xx –c “Hi you are being shutdown”

To Restart a local machine:

• shutdown –r

To Restart a local machine and force applications to close:

• shutdown –r –f

To Restart a local machine with a timed delay in seconds:

• shutdown –r –t xx

To Restart a local machine with a timed delay in seconds and a comment:

• shutdown –r –t xx –c “Hi you are being restarted”

REMOTE MACHINE – NOT ALL THAT CAN BE DONE.

To Shutdown a remote machine:

• shutdown –s –m \\computername

To Shutdown a remote machine and force applications to close:

• shutdown –s –f –m \\computername

To Shutdown a remote machine with a timed delay in seconds:

• shutdown –s –t xx –m \\computername

To Shutdown a remote machine with a timed delay in seconds and a comment:

• shutdown –s –t xx –m \\computername –c “Hi you are being shutdown”

To Restart a remote machine:

• shutdown –r –m \\computername

To Restart a remote machine and force applications to close:

• shutdown –r –f –m \\computername

To Restart a remote machine with a timed delay in seconds:

• shutdown –r –t xx –m \\computername

To Restart a remote machine with a timed delay in seconds and a comment:

• shutdown –r –t xx –m \\computername –c “Hi you are being restarted”

The "\\computername" can also be the IP Address of the machine. Such as \\192.168.1.1

I use this command all the time when I am in a hurry. It seems to be faster then using the mouse and because I have a server machine that does not have any thing hooked up except power and a network cable to access it.

I also love using this on my home networked computers, especially when my kids are ignoring me when I call them up for dinner, etc. I just shutdown or restart the computers that they are using with my laptop (with a timed delay – so they can save and exit what they are doing and comments as to why I am doing it). Very handy!!!