How To Use the Remote Shutdown Tool to Shut Down and Restart a Computer in Windows 2000

This article describes how to use the Remote Shutdown tool (Shutdown.exe) to shut down and restart a local or remote Windows 2000-based or Microsoft Windows NT 4.0-based computer.

Shutdown.exe is available on the Microsoft Windows 2000 Resource Kit CD-ROM only. It is a command-line tool that you can use to shut down or to restart a local or remote computer that is running Windows 2000 or Windows NT 4.0. If you want to schedule a computer to shut down and restart at a specific time, use Shutdown.exe in combination with the at command or Task Scheduler.

Note Shutdown.exe for Windows 2000 is no longer supported and is not available for download from Microsoft. This tool is available on the original Microsoft Windows 2000 Resource Kit CD-ROM only.

Description of the Shutdown.exe Tool

Shutdown.exe uses the following syntax: You can use the following switches with Shutdown.exe:

• \\computername: Use this switch to specify the remote computer to shut down. If you omit this parameter, the local computer name is used.
• /l (Note that this is a lowercase "L" character): Use this switch to shut down the local computer
• /a: Use this switch to quit a shutdown operation. You can do this only during the time-out period. If you use this switch, all other parameters are ignored.
• /r: Use this switch to restart the computer instead of fully shutting it down.
• /t:xx: Use this switch to specify the time (in seconds) after which the computer is shut down. The default is 20 seconds.
• "msg": Use this switch to specify a message during the shutdown process. The maximum number of characters that the message can contain is 127.
• /y: Use this switch to force a "yes" answer to all queries from the computer.
• /c: Use this switch quit all running programs. If you use this switch, Windows forces all programs that are running to quit. The option to save any data that may have changed is ignored. This can result in data loss in any programs for which data is not previously saved.

Examples

• To shut down the local computer in two minutes and display a "The computer is shutting down" message, use the following line in a batch file or type it at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:
  shutdown /l /t:120 "The computer is shutting down" /y /c
  To cancel the shutdown process, type the following line at the command prompt, and then press ENTER:
  shutdown /l /a /y
• To shut down and restart a remote computer named "Support," use the following line in a batch file or type it at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:
  shutdown \\support /r
• To schedule the local computer to shutdown and restart at 10:00 P.M., type the following line at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:
  at 22:00 shutdown /l /r /y /c
• To schedule the local computer to shutdown and restart at 6:00 P.M. every weekday, type the following line at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:
  at 18:00 /every:M,T,W,Th,F shutdown /l /r /y /c

Troubleshooting

The specified computer may not shut down when you use the Shutdown.exe tool to shut it down. This behavior can occur if the Unlock Computer dialog box appears on the desktop, or if the computer is locked. For additional information about how to resolve this issue, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

For more information about Shutdown.exe, type shutdown /? at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.

For additional information about how to use the AT command to schedule tasks in Windows 2000, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For additional information about how to use Task Scheduler to schedule a task in Windows 2000, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For more information about the Windows 2000 Resource Kit, visit the following Microsoft Web site: