Introduction

This guide shows you how to create a shortcut that’ll lock, restart, or shutdown your Windows Vista computer when double-clicked.

Create Lock, Restart, and Shutdown Shortcuts

Lock Shortcut

In this example I’m going to create a shortcut that locks your computer. Information on how to create shutdown and restart shortcuts is below.

1. Right-click an empty space on your desktop, point at New, and then select Shortcut.
2. Type rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation in the location and then press Next.

   ^[1]

3. Type the name of the shortcut in the name box. I used Lock in this example.

   ^[2]

4. Click Finish to create the shortcut.

The lock shortcut should work now. Let’s pretty things up and give this shortcut an icon.

1. Right-click the new shortcut and select Properties.
2. Click the Change icon button.
3. Type %SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll in the Look for icons in this file box and press enter on your keyboard.
4. Select the icon you want to use and then click OK.

   ^[3]

5. Type something like Lock Computer in the Comment box in the shortcut properties window.

   ^[4]

   This text will appear when you hover over the shortcut with your mouse.

6. Click OK to save your changes.

Restart Shortcut

Follow the steps above but type shutdown.exe /r /t 01 in the location box.

Shutdown Shortcut

Follow the steps above but type shutdown.exe /s /t 01 in the location box.