Shutdown and Reboot

OS ⁽¹⁾ Command line Effect Remarks

DOS ECHO G=FFFF:0000 ¦ DEBUG Reboot Warm boot, sometimes cold boot.
May not work with "exotic" memory managers, like Quarterdeck's QEMM or DesqView; in that case, use RESET.COM instead.

Win31* ECHO G=FFFF:0000 ¦ DEBUG Task Manager popup And sometimes reboot

Win9* RUNDLL USER.EXE,ExitWindows Shutdown ⁽²⁾

Win9* RUNDLL USER.EXE,ExitWindowsExec See Remarks Win95: various results, usualy fast shutdown (and lock PC), sometimes restart Windows, sometimes reboot.
Win98: Restart Windows, sometimes reboot.

Win9* RUNDLL SHELL.DLL,RestartDialog Restart dialog "System Settings Changed, Do you want to restart your computer now?" dialog

Win98 RUNDLL32 KRNL386.EXE,exitkernel Poweroff Poweroff for ATX boards only, otherwise normal shutdown ⁽³⁾

Win98/ME


        RUNDLL32 SHELL32.DLL,SHExitWindowsEx n

See Remarks

`n` can be any combination (sum) of the following numbers: ⁽⁴⁾
0		Logoff
1		Shutdown
2		Reboot
4		Force
8		Poweroff (if supported by the hardware)

Win98/ME RUNONCE.EXE -q Reboot ⁽⁴⁾

NT4 See Reboot NT on my Solutions found in alt.msdos.batch page Reboot Reboot immediately

NT4 RUNDLL32 USER32.DLL,ExitWindowsEx RUNDLL32 USER32.DLL,ExitWindowsEx Logoff Most systems require the command to be called twice before logging off

NT4+RK
W2K+RK SHUTDOWN /L /R /T:0 /Y Reboot Immediate shutdown & reboot

NT4+RK
W2K+RK SHUTDOWN /L /T:10 /Y /C Delayed shutdown Shutdown in 10 seconds, close without saving.
Can be stopped during those 10 seconds using SHUTDOWN /A

NT+ ⁽¹⁾ PSSHUTDOWN \\mynt4srv -K -F -T 20 Delayed poweroff Poweroff \\mynt4srv after a 20 seconds delay
Can be aborted using PSSHUTDOWN \\mynt4srv -A
Uses PSSHUTDOWN.EXE from SysInternal.com's PS Tools

NT+ ⁽¹⁾ PSSHUTDOWN \\myw2ksrv -O -F -T 0 Logoff Immediately logoff console user on \\myw2ksrv
Uses PSSHUTDOWN.EXE from SysInternal.com's PS Tools

W2K ⁽⁵⁾ DEVCON Reboot Reboot Requires Microsoft's DEVCON utility

W2K Click here and learn how to shutdown a remote Windows 2000 computer Shutdown GUI, no command line

XP SHUTDOWN -r -t 10 Delayed reboot Reboot after a 10 seconds delay.
Can be stopped during those 10 seconds using SHUTDOWN -a

XP SHUTDOWN -s -t 01 Delayed shutdown Shutdown after a 1 second delay, NO poweroff.

XP RUNDLL32 PowrProf.dll, SetSuspendState Activate suspend state

TS LOGOFF 16 /SERVER:termserv1 Logoff Logoff session 16 on Terminal Server TERMSERV1.
Use the QUERY USER command to find out which session ID belongs to whom.
More Terminal Server commands here.

TS TSSHUTDN 45 /SERVER:termserv1 /POWERDOWN /DELAY:20 /V Delayed poweroff Notify all users on Terminal Server TERMSERV1, logoff all Terminal Server sessions after 45 seconds, wait another 20 seconds, and then shut down Terminal Server TERMSERV1 and power off.
See my Terminal Server Commands page for the exact syntax.

Kix $RC = SHUTDOWN( "\\server", "Shutting down...", 10, 1, 0 ) Delayed shutdown Shutdown \\server in 10 seconds, with message, close without saving, no reboot

Kix $RC = SHUTDOWN( "\\server", "", 0, 1, 1 ) Reboot Immediate shutdown & reboot \\server, without a message

Kix $RC = LOGOFF( 1 ) Logoff Forcing applications to close.
Use 0 instead of 1 if you don't want to force applications to close

Perl InitiateSystemShutdown( $sComputer, $sMessage, $uTimeoutSecs, $bForce, $bReboot ) General syntax (ActivePerl for Windows only)

Perl InitiateSystemShutdown( "", "", 0, 1, 1 ) Reboot Immediate reboot without message, force applications to close without saving data

Perl InitiateSystemShutdown( "", "Going down...", 10, 0, 1 ) Delayed reboot Reboot after 10 seconds, with message and without forcing applications to close

Perl InitiateSystemShutdown( "10.0.1.16", "Sorry", 5, 1, 0 ) Delayed shutdown Shutdown of remote computer after 5 seconds, with message and forced closing of applications

Regina Rexx RC = W32SysShutdown( how [,force] ) General syntax (Regina Rexx for Windows with W32Funcs only).
how can be either Reboot, Logoff, Poweroff or Shutdown.
force can be either Force or Noforce.

Regina Rexx RC = W32SysShutdown( "P", "F" ) Poweroff Immediate shutdown and poweroff, forced closing of application

Regina Rexx RC = W32SysShutdown( "L", "N" ) Logoff Logoff, prompt for saving unsaved data

WSH [1] Set OpSysSet = GetObject("winmgmts:{(Shutdown)}//./root/cimv2").ExecQuery("select * from Win32_OperatingSystem where Primary=true")
[2]
[3] for each OpSys in OpSysSet
[4] OpSys.Reboot()
[5] next Reboot Requires WMI.
Remove [line numbers].
(Found in a forum posting by Alex K. Angelopoulos on www.developersdex.com)

WSH Replace line 4 in the script above with this one:
[4] OpSys.Shutdown()
to shut down the PC instead of rebooting it. Shutdown But no poweroff.

See my WSH page for examples on how to reboot or shut down remote computers too.

WSH [1] Const EWX_LOGOFF = 0
[2]
[3] Set wmi = GetObject("winmgmts:{(Shutdown)}")
[4] Set objSet = wmi.InstancesOf("Win32_OperatingSystem")
[5]
[9] For Each obj in objSet
[6] Set os = obj
[7] Exit For
[8] Next
[9]
[10] os.Win32Shutdown EWX_LOGOFF Logoff Requires WMI.
Remove [line numbers].
(Posted by Michael Harris on microsoft.public.scripting.vbscript)

My Logoff.vbs combines this code with that of the reboot and shutdown commands, and allows logoff of remote computers as well.

OS/2 START /PM SHUTDOWN && EXIT Shutdown Will still stop and ask for confirmation if a non-PM application is active

OS/2 SETBOOT /B Reboot Unconditional shutdown & reboot from default Boot Manager entry.
(Mailed by Rick Curry)

OS/2 SETBOOT /IBD:C: Reboot Unconditional shutdown & reboot from C: drive

OS/2 SETBOOT /IBA:nonsense Shutdown Unconditional shutdown & failing reboot.
Needs Boot Manager installed.
Will reboot, no questions asked, and then stop if nonsense is an invalid Boot Manager menu entry (which, in this case, is exactly what we want).

OS/2 LOGOFF Logoff Both LAN Server client and Peer


Notes:	1	DOS	MS-DOS or PC-DOS
		Win31*	Windows 3.1, 3.11 or 3.11 for Workgroups
		Win9*	Windows 95 or 98
		Win98	Windows 98
		Win98/ME	Windows 98 or Windows Millennium Edition (ME)
		NT+	Windows NT 4, 2000 or XP
		NT4	Windows NT 4 (not Windows 2000 or XP)
		NT4+RK	Windows NT 4 with Resource Kit
		W2K	Windows 2000
		W2K+RK	Windows 2000 with Resource Kit
		XP	Windows XP
		TS	Windows NT 4 Terminal Server Edition or Windows 2000 (Advanced) Server with Terminal Server installed
		Kix	Windows (any) with KiXtart
		Perl	Windows (any) with ActivePerl
		Regina Rexx	Windows (any) with Regina Rexx and W32Funcs
		WSH	Windows (32 bits) with Windows Script Host
		OS/2	OS/2 Warp 3 and 4, LAN Server and Warp Server
	2	Thanks for Bill James and Tom Lavedas, for the information on RUNDLL. Find more RUNDLL examples I collected on my RUNDLL page.
	3	Thanks for Sasha Predii for posting this information on www.diskovod.ru. Find more RUNDLL examples I collected on my RUNDLL page.
	4	See article Q234216 in the Microsoft Knowledge base for more information. Thanks for Alec Soroudi for pointing out this information. Windows NT also has a RUNONCE.EXE, but I am not sure what its purpose is -- `RUNONCE.EXE -q` does not shut down NT.
	5	Requires Microsoft's DEVCON utility

Use Andrej Budja's XP Shutdown replacement if you want to poweroff your computer from the command line.

Didier Cassereau's Logoff tool for Windows NT can logoff, shutdown, reboot or power off from the command line.

Jorgen Bosman's PowerOff for all Windows (32-bits) versions can power off, shutdown or reboot your PC, log you off, lock your workstation, go to standby or hibernation mode and even wake up another PC.
All actions can be done locally or on a remote PC (if it is running PowerOff).
The actions can be performed immediately or scheduled, by using its built-in scheduler.
This tool can be used both as a GUI or as a command line tool.

Gibson Research's Wizmo is a collection of tools integrated in a single package.
Among its functions are shutdown, reboot, hibernate and logoff.

And last but not least SysInternals.com's PSSHUTDOWN can perform logoffs, poweroffs, shutdowns and reboots on both local and remote Windows NT 4/2000/XP systems. Absolutely recommended.