Shutdown is an exciting command line program available in Vista and
Windows 7. I say exciting both in the sense that everyone loves this
command, and also exiting in the sense it has a dramatic effect - downs the computer. Therefore, take care when experimenting with this command.
Sooner or later you will shoot yourself in
the foot, and accidentally shutdown your own machine instead of the computer
that
you really wish to reboot. So pay close attention to this abort syntax.
Shutdown is a built-in executable in Vista, XP and the Windows Server
family. Begin by clicking on the Start orb, type cmd in the 'Search' box. Your
first major decision is do you want a simple shutdown or a restart? To
stop the machine, use Shutdown
/s. Alternatively, if you want the machine to reboot then type
Shutdown /r.
After you issue the /s or /r, a dialog box appears with a 30 second count
down, remember if you are just testing, then cancel. Watch out for the
dialog box disappearing after you type
the Shutdown /a instruction.
For the 'Remote' switch /m. The full command would
be: Shutdown /r /m \\MainMachine. The slashes look slightly
strange, but that's how it works, in this example, 'MainMachine' is the name
of the remote
computer. None of these commands are case sensitive so sHUTDOWN /R /m \\MainMachine would work.
Note: There is no space between the backslashes and the computername \\
MainMachine would be a
mistake.
For the local machine, try 127.0.0.1
For example, shutdown /s /m \\127.0.0.1. Useful in batch files.
Examples
of The Vista Shutdown switches
shutdown /s /m \\Laptop - Shuts down a remote machine called 'Laptop'
shutdown /r /m \\Laptop
- Reboots a remote machine called 'Laptop
Note: For once the sequence of switches is
vital, hence shutdown /m /s \\ laptop does not work.
/i is for interactive. This shutdown switch provides a GUI so
that you can make your choices more easily.
/t is for time. Is 30 seconds too short (or too long) a time?
You can adjust with /t: 60 to display the dialog box for one minute. Maximum is
600 seconds.
/f is for force. 'Mr Nasty', is coming - ready or not! Shutdown
/r /f as you may have guessed, restarts the machine, and closes any programs
without warning.
/c is for a comment. Would you like to put your stamp on the shutdown?
Let people know who is in charge, who is shutting them down? /c "Guy
is shutting you down"
/d p:4:1 reason. Personally, I would avoid this switch, the syntax
is tricky the numbers obscure and worst of all it does nothing exciting.
That said the idea is sound, it enters a reason for the shutdown in the
event log. If you activate shutdown's help, then you will get a whole
list of major and minor reasons that you could employ with this switch.
For me, this switch is an option, an option that I do not take.
Note 1: Shutdown's switches work equally well with a dash, for example, -d, -r or -a (instead of /d, /r or /a)
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PowerShell v 2.0's Restart-Computer cmdlet is very similar to Vista's shutdown /r command. A likely scenario is that you wish to
automate the reboot of a local or remote server. With a tiny
substitution to the cmdlet's verb you could change the command so that it
simply shuts down the computer.
It's fun to experiment with the shutdown command line switches, one day
when you want restart a remote computer, shutdown /r
will save you a long walk.
My advice is to learn the /a (abort) switch, that way you won't panic if
you issue a command to shutdown the local laptop instead of the network
machine.
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