A “Safer” Way To Shutdown Windows

Have you ever gone to shutdown your Windows machine (via Start > Shutdown) and once the process starts you remember there was one quick thing you needed to do? If so this is a hassle as you now have to turn the computer back on again to take care of it.

Instead of the usual procedure, instead try this batch file instead:

shutdown /s /t 60

When run, this will pop up a message box with a countdown to the system shutting down. This gives you time to make any last second adjustments, or you can cancel the shutdown process with another batch command:

shutdown /a

I keep 2 batch files on my desktop, “Shut down.bat” and “Cancel Shut down.bat” which run these commands and I don’t even bother with the standard Windows interface. Additionally, you can have the computer restart instead of shutdown by replacing “/s” with “/r” and you can adjust the countdown by changing 60 up to 600.

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Garry Stafford
shutdown /s /t 60
Jason
Tried this on my Xp Pro PC and you need to tell people:
Do not name it “shutdown.bat” when you create it because this, for some reason, just makes the file create an endless loop in a DOS window.
Best wishes
Garry
Jason Faulkner
Garry,
This was a typo on my part. My files are called “Shut down.bat” and “Cancel Shut down.bat” (space in the file name) for the exact reason you pointed out.
I have updated the tip text. Thanks for pointing it out.
Joe Whitehead
Or you could say “shutdown.EXE”