The most common ways to use the shutdown
command are:
shutdown -s
— Shuts down.shutdown -r
— Restarts.shutdown -l
— Logs off.-
shutdown -h
— Hibernates.Note: There is a common pitfall wherein users think
-h
means “help” (which it does for every other command-line program… exceptshutdown.exe
, where it means “hibernate”). They then runshutdown -h
and accidentally turn off their computers. Watch out for that. -
shutdown -i
— “Interactive mode”. Instead of performing an action, it displays a GUI dialog. shutdown -a
— Aborts a previous shutdown command.
The commands above can be combined with these additional options:
-f
— Forces programs to exit. Prevents the shutdown process from getting stuck.-t <seconds>
— Sets the time until shutdown. Use-t 0
to shutdown immediately.-c <message>
— Adds a shutdown message. The message will end up in the Event Log.-
-y
— Forces a “yes” answer to all shutdown queries.Note: This option is not documented in any official documentation. It was discovered by these StackOverflow users.
I want to make sure some other really good answers are also mentioned along with this one. Here they are in no particular order.
- The
-f
option from JosephStyons - Using
rundll32
from VonC - The Run box from Dean
- Remote shutdown from Kip