Question

I’ve been using Remote Desktop Connection to get into a workstation. But in this environment, I cannot use the power options in Start Menu. I need an alternative way to shutdown or restart.

How do I control my computer’s power state through the command line?

Answer 1

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… except shutdown.exe, where it means ‘hibernate’). They then run shutdown -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.

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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