This guide shows you how to use the shutdown command and its various switches to shutdown, restart, or logoff local or networked computers from the command prompt, dialog window, or batch file.
This guide shows you how to use the shutdown command and its various switches to shutdown, restart, or logoff local or networked computers from the command prompt, dialog window, or batch file.
What can the shutdown command do?
The shutdown command can be use via the command prompt, the remote shutdown dialog window, or in a batch file. You can logoff, shutdown, or restart a computer with this tool. You can even set the shutdown tool to perform a task at a certain time on certain days and to many computers at one time using a batch file.
This is a good tool to easily shutdown or restart lots of computers on a network at one time. It can also be handy for helpdesk technicians when fixing remote computers.
Shutdown Command via Dialog Window
Typing commands in a DOS window is not what most computer users want to fool with so I’m going to start by showing you how to use the dialog window to use the shutdown tool.
To open the dialog window click start, click run, type cmd and press enter. A black DOS looking window will open. Type shutdown -i and press enter. A window similar to the one below will popup.
Under computers type the network name of the computer you want to shutdown, restart, or logoff. In this example I will use \\yourcomputer. You can use your computer’s name to try the commands on your computer if you like.
If you don’t know a computers name right click my computer, select properties, select the computer name tab. Your computer name is listed next to full computer name.
To send these commands to other computers across your network you need to have administrative privileges on those computers. An easy way to see if you have administrative privileges on a networked computer is to try browsing to it. Click start, click run, type \\yourcomputer (replace yourcomputer with your computer’s name of course) and press enter. If you are able to access the computer you will be able to send shutdown commands to it. If you get asked for a password or it denies access you don’t have administrative privileges and you won’t be able to send shutdown commands to that computer.
In this example I’m going to shutdown computer \\yourcomputer on my network. Before it shuts down it’s going to show a message for 20 seconds.
The first thing you need to do is add which computer you want to shutdown. Click add and type your computer name in the add computers box.
You can send the command to multiple computers by pressing enter after the name of each computer and typing the name of the next computer on the next line. Each computer needs to be on its own line.
Click OK when you are finished adding the computer(s) you want to send the command to.
Under what do you want these computers to do: tell it to shutdown, restart, or logoff.
If you want a box to popup on the computer(s) you are sending the command to that lets them know the computer is about to shutdown, restart, or logoff in X many seconds leave warn users of the action checked off. If you want to change how many seconds to countdown before performing the action you can change that next to seconds.
You can tell a user on the computer you are about to perform the action on why you are performing that action by typing your message in under comment.
Click OK to send the command to the computer(s).
If you get an error when sending the command it will look like the one below.
Shutdown Command via Command Prompt
The shutdown command becomes more flexible and automated when used from the command prompt. To run the shutdown command from the command prompt, go to start, run, type cmd, and press enter. In the black box (the command prompt) type shutdown and the switches you want to use with the shutdown command. You have to use at east one switch for the shutdown command to work.
The Switches
The shutdown command has a few options called switches. You can always see them by typing shutdown -? in the command prompt if you forget any of them.
-i: Display GUI interface, must be the first option
-l: Log off (cannot be used with -m option)
-s: Shutdown the computer
-r: Shutdown and restart the computer
-a: Abort a system shutdown
-m \\computername: Remote computer to shutdown/restart/abort
-t xx: Set timeout for shutdown to xx seconds
-c “comment”: Shutdown comment (maximum of 127 characters)
-f: Forces running applications to close without warning
-d [u][p]:xx:yy: The reason code for the shutdown u is the user code p is a planned shutdown code xx is the major reason code (positive integer less than 256) yy is the minor reason code (positive integer less than 65536)
Please note: I’ve noticed using a switch with a - sign doesn’t work sometimes. If you are having trouble try using a / in place of - in your switches.
Examples
shutdown –m \\computername –r –f This command will restart the computer named computername and force any programs that might still be running to stop.
shutdown –m \\computername –r –f –c “I’m restarting your computer. Please save your work now.” –t 120 This command will restart the computer named computername, force any programs that might still be running to stop, give to user on that computer a message, and countdown 120 seconds before it restarts.
shutdown –m \\computername –a This command will abort a previous shutdown command that is in progress.
Using a Batch File
You can create a file that performs the shutdown command on many computers at one time.
In this example I’m going to create a batch file that will use the shutdown command to shut down 3 computers on my home network before I go to bed.
Open notepad and type the shutdown command to shut down a computer for each computer on the network. Make sure each shutdown command is on its own line. An example of what should be typed in notepad is below.
shutdown –m \\computer1 –s
shutdown –m \\computer2 –s
shutdown –m \\computer3 -s
Now I’ll save it as a batch file by going to file, save as, change save as type to all files, give the file a name ending with .bat. I named mine shutdown.bat. Pick the location to save the batch file in and save it.
When you run the batch file it’ll shutdown computer1, 2, and 3 for you.
You can use any combination of shutdown commands in a batch file. I just used the one above as an example.
By mazterpeaces on April 27th, 2007 at 4:48 am #
hello,why when i try to restart other network computer in command prompt will dispaly “ACCESS DENIED”…plz tell me how to settle this problem..tq
By Brent Trahan on April 27th, 2007 at 5:25 am #
The user account on your computer doesn’t have administrative rights on the networked computer.
Try adding the user account of your computer on the networked computer and give it administrative rights.
By Nathan on May 4th, 2007 at 3:46 pm #
Is it possible to shutdown a computer that isn’t on your server, from your computer, through the command prompt?
By Brent Trahan on May 4th, 2007 at 7:25 pm #
What do you mean by “isn’t on your server”?
As long as you’re logged in with a user that has Admin privileges on the remote computer you can shut it down from the command prompt.
By josh on May 15th, 2007 at 2:16 pm #
all of the PC’s on my network have a default admin account. When I sign into this account on my PC and try to shut a PC down remotely I still get access denied. What else can I do to get this to work?
By Brent Trahan on May 15th, 2007 at 2:50 pm #
Maybe I’m not making this clear enough. Let me try to explain this again.
The computer sending the shutdown command to a networked computer needs to be logged in as a user with administrative privileges on the computer receiving the shutdown command in order for the shutdown command to work. The user name and password have to match on both computers.
For example: Computer A wants to send a shutdown command to computer B across a network. Computer B has a user account called Administrator with a password of letmein. In order for computer A to be able to successfully send the shutdown command to computer B computer A must be logged in as Administrator with the password letmein .
By Raymond Lim on May 16th, 2007 at 3:02 am #
Thank you vary much, Mr. Brent Trahan.
Your explanation for remote or batch command shut down is clear enough to understand & it is vary useful for me to do auto remotely PC shut down.
Thanks again.
=)
By doN on May 22nd, 2007 at 10:40 pm #
ok the only thing i want to know is that how do i give the other pc a network administrative rights??
By Jimi on June 14th, 2007 at 3:24 am #
hi, my problem is it asks for a network path. how would i find this?
By Aquib on July 21st, 2007 at 6:02 am #
all of the PC’s on my network have a default admin account. When I sign into this account on my PC and try to shut a PC down remotely I still get access denied. What else can I do to get this to work?
i tried this procedure also
Computer A wants to send a shutdown command to computer B across a network. Computer B has a user account called Administrator with a password of letmein. In order for computer A to be able to successfully send the shutdown command to computer B computer A must be logged in as Administrator with the password letmein .
By Aquib on July 21st, 2007 at 6:02 am #
all of the Computer on my network have a default admin account. When I sign into this account on my Computer and try to shut a Computer down remotely I still get access denied. What can i do?
i tried this procedure also
Computer A wants to send a shutdown command to computer B across a network. Computer B has a user account called Administrator with a password of letmein. In order for computer A to be able to successfully send the shutdown command to computer B computer A must be logged in as Administrator with the password letmein .
By Aquib on July 21st, 2007 at 6:04 am #
all of the Computer on my network have a default admin account. When I sign into this account on my Computer and try to shut a Computer down remotely I still get access denied. What can i do?
i tried every procedure but it is impossible
By Aquib on July 21st, 2007 at 6:06 am #
all of the Computer is on my network have a adminstrator account. When I sign into this account on my Computer and try to shutdown a Computer remotely I still get access denied. What can i do?
i tried every procedure but it is impossible
By Aquib on July 21st, 2007 at 6:08 am #
all of the Computer is on my network have a adminstrator account. When I sign into this account on my Computer and try to shutdown a Computer remotely I still get access denied. What should i do?
i tried every procedure but it is impossible
By Kevin on October 2nd, 2007 at 3:42 pm #
do u have to type in the “1 2 and 3″ in the \\computersname if u want to shutdown more than one at a time?
heres what u said:
shutdown –m \\computer1 –s
shutdown –m \\computer2 –s
shutdown –m \\computer3 -s
so do u need those numbers in there? or do u just need the computer names?
By Brent Trahan on October 2nd, 2007 at 3:47 pm #
Computer1, computer2, and computer3 are examples of computer names on a network.
Replace computer1, computer2, and so on with the names of computers on your network. Examples: Bedroom, Livingroom, FileServer.
By Bert on October 3rd, 2007 at 10:36 am #
I cannot get the -c switch to work.
I have used <> in the command line and as a scheduled task. The comments don’t work in either, but it works correctly otherwise. ie It shuts down at the correct time with the correct wait period.
also, when trying to use a .bat the command is entered hundreds of times in an infinite loop.
I am using XP professional.
By Brent Trahan on October 3rd, 2007 at 11:37 am #
You need to place your comments in “quotation marks” not <>.
What is in your batch file? Type it out here exactly.
By Bert on October 3rd, 2007 at 11:57 am #
oops, I used double <’s to enclose what I had in the command line and it killed it all. It should say “shutdown -s -f -t 120 -c “This computer will shutdown in 2 minutes. Save your work”"
my batch file is
shutdown -s -f -t 120 -c “This is a test”
By Brent Trahan on October 3rd, 2007 at 12:12 pm #
I created a batch file with
shutdown -s -f -t 120 -c "This is a test"and it worked on my Vista PC.Try replacing the - with / in the command and let me know.
By Bert on October 3rd, 2007 at 12:27 pm #
shutdown /s /f /t 120 /c “This a test” still results in an infinite loops in the batch. I think using a timer might not work for batches.
In the command line it works, but there is still no comment.
I’ve just noticed that a separate window appears for an instant when using the command line. I suspect that window has the comment in it but for some reason it closes instantly.
By Brent Trahan on October 3rd, 2007 at 12:35 pm #
Add another line to your batch file and type
PAUSE.After the command is run it will pause and let you see any errors in the DOS prompt.
By Bert on October 3rd, 2007 at 2:23 pm #
pause in the .bat file seems to do nothing.
a simple .bat consisting of only
dir
pause
works fine though.
I tried shutdown -s -t 120 -c “testing”|pause in the command line. It shows the message “press any key to continue…” like expected, but does not actually pause the program. (the | operator may not do what I think it does in windows)
The instantly appearing and disappearing box is with the command line only; the batch file shows the command line window but continually scrolls E:\Documents and settings\bert\Desktop\shutdown -r -t 120 -c “testing”
I am beginning to think there is some seemingly unrelated setting somewhere that is interfering with things.
By Brent Trahan on October 3rd, 2007 at 2:38 pm #
You should only have one line in your batch file that goes exactly like so:
shutdown -s -f -t 120 -c “This is a test”Don’t use |.
If you want to pause the batch file to see any errors type two lines like so:
shutdown -s -f -t 120 -c “This is a test”PAUSEBy Bert on October 3rd, 2007 at 3:09 pm #
That’s what I have. I used the | in the command line only.
By rob on November 8th, 2007 at 7:53 pm #
the remote computer on my network has multiple user accounts; 1 guest, 2 admin accounts which are password protected and 1 admin account which is not password protected, i have an admin account on my pc which is password protected, what do i need to do to shut down the other pc from my own??
By Brent Trahan on November 9th, 2007 at 8:41 am #
You need to be logged in with an admin account on your local computer that has the exact name and password (if any) as the remote computer you’re trying to shut down.
By nimbus510 on November 20th, 2007 at 4:19 pm #
I am having issues with this and I cannot figure out why. I’m running a large closed network with 1 server and 15 clients. I want to use a batch file to restart all of the clients at once rather than me going all around the building and restarting them one at a time.
The server is logged in as Administrator and has access to all of the clients. The clients all use an account called CG_user. They all still do however have an Administrator account as well which uses the exact same password as the server’s administrator account.
When I use the remote shutdown command I get simply get the message that access was denied. What am I missing here?
By Brent Trahan on November 20th, 2007 at 4:32 pm #
It seems like it should work to me. What version of server and clients are you using?
By Nimbus510 on November 20th, 2007 at 6:47 pm #
Server is running Windows Server 2003, clients are on XP pro.
I also have been trying to experiment with this in the office over a closed network of 3 other computers, all logged in as Administrator with the same passwords, and mine as well…and I STILL get “Access is Denied.” What am I missing!?!? All computers are capable of accessing eachother’s files, remote desktop, etc, but remote shutdown is not possible! Very frustrating.
By Brent Trahan on November 20th, 2007 at 9:35 pm #
Do you have a firewall on any of the computers?
By roise_r on November 28th, 2007 at 2:03 pm #
what i didn’t get still is: why it keeps saying to me Access is Denied, when still trying to shutdown remote computers with the same OS, the same admin account, and the same password, as the computer i am sending the command from…? it works, on all other computers in the room, except 4 of them… so i got it working for almost all computers in the room
By roise_r on November 28th, 2007 at 2:18 pm #
…and i don’t know why, if i write a batch file… it keeps disregarding my options, meaning if i say: “-r -f” … it will only shutdown it without forcing application quit, and NO restart, just shutdown?????????
this is an example of my batch file, (just like if i would write a command in the command promt):
shutdown -m \\room106-pc12 -r -f
By Brent Trahan on November 28th, 2007 at 3:13 pm #
I’ve come across computers that had software that wasn’t letting them shut down until it was properly closed or logged out. Check and see if you have any of that going on.
Can you run the shutdown command locally on the 4 computers that don’t shutdown with the batch file?
By Rob on December 11th, 2007 at 3:02 pm #
shutdown -m \\Laptop1a -s -f
why doesnt tis work
i think i have the admin rights cos i can acces the folders on that laptop if i do Start|Run|laptop1a
By Brent Trahan on December 11th, 2007 at 3:19 pm #
Just because you can access a folder doesn’t mean you have admin rights.
By rakesh on December 13th, 2007 at 11:11 pm #
Is there any command to remotely logoff a user from the machine.
By Austin on December 14th, 2007 at 12:07 am #
I do not understand. I went to run typed CMD and then i typed: shutdown -i after i typed that i added a computer and when i clicked log off it logged me off my computer instead of my other computer??? did i do something wrong?
By GiacJr on December 14th, 2007 at 1:40 am #
Hi brent! I love your tutorial, but I have quite a few problems. Please send me an email at giacjr@gmail.com with an IM address so I can explain them in length and get a quick reply. Thanks brent!
GiacJr
By Brent Trahan on December 14th, 2007 at 9:13 am #
@ rakesh: Yeap, look under the switches section of this guide.
@ austin: You can’t log off a remote computer.
@ giacjr: Use the contact page to send me an e-mail about your problem and I’ll see what I can do.
By RolfW on December 16th, 2007 at 6:44 am #
regarding Bert’s problem with the loop.
Try to rename the commandfile to something different from “shutdown”.
By Nestea_Zen on December 23rd, 2007 at 6:32 am #
For all of you getting the ‘Access denied’ message, you need ntrights.exe (for Home Edition) to edit XP’s security policy. (If you have the pro version you can do it with run>secpol.msc> Force shutdown from a remote system.)
The command would be (run>cmd)
ntrights -u Guest +r SeRemoteShutdownPrivilege
If the guest account isn’t active use
ntrights -u Interactive +r SeRemoteShutdownPrivilege
I can’t provide the registry entry because I don’t know where the ‘User Rrights Assignment’ entries are stored.
ntrights can be found at
By jyesj on January 4th, 2008 at 10:07 pm #
dear thnanks for this fantatistic post but i have windows 2000 professional, when i type shudown -i in ms dos prompt it says it did not recognize command intenal or external what may be the reason moreover is it only for win xp.
By jyesj on January 4th, 2008 at 10:18 pm #
what abt win2000 its not working shows not recognize as internal or external dos command
By Brent Trahan on January 5th, 2008 at 7:52 am #
This command isn’t included with win2000.
By Robert M on February 5th, 2008 at 9:29 pm #
I was getting an access denied as well. However, when I went to the NetBIOS name (\\computername) it gave me an access denied because the clock was not synchronized with the primary domain controller. If you cannot access the machine using NetBIOS the shutdown command will not work. Just something to check for the people experiencing access denied.
By Brent Trahan on February 6th, 2008 at 5:32 am #
Thanks for that tip Robert.
By steven on February 7th, 2008 at 9:49 pm #
can you shut down a computer with vista from a computer with xp?
By matt on February 8th, 2008 at 5:10 am #
I am trying to use this command as a batch file on my server. I want to be able to set it up as a sheduled task for the evening, so when i go home i know that any computer still on will be shut down by say 7pm. When i test with the script nothing happens. What am i doing wrong.
By Galaxy on February 11th, 2008 at 3:21 pm #
Does command shutdown can be use on local PC with User account or only with Administrator rights? I’m using XP Home edition and don’t have to much possibilities.
I’m tryed to shutdown PC with batch file or planned task
with user right doesn’t work. Is anyone could help?
By Sandro Castillo on February 29th, 2008 at 10:05 am #
Hi,
I trying to perform the following through a batch file and everything works fine, the only question I have is why don’t machines shutdown if they are locked? Shutdown does not occur if a workstation is locked.
By Brent Trahan on February 29th, 2008 at 10:16 am #
Try adding the -f switch to shutdown locked computers.
By Connr on March 3rd, 2008 at 8:14 pm #
Ok, I have an administrative account on my computer. I do not know if i have an administrative account on my network. How do i get admin privlages on my network? And how do i get rid of Acces denied? MY computer im using to shut the other computer off is Vista. The PC taking the remote shutdown is XP. Why do i get access denied?
By Brent Trahan on March 4th, 2008 at 7:27 am #
Lets say the administrative account on your XP computer is called User and the password is password. In order for the shutdown command to work, the user on your Vista computer must have the account name of User with the password password also.
By CryingFreeMan on March 4th, 2008 at 8:36 am #
where can i find admin account?? working on win 98???
By CryingFreeMan on March 5th, 2008 at 4:12 am #
This command isn’t included with win98???
By Brent Trahan on March 5th, 2008 at 7:50 am #
Windows 98 users type the following in the DOS box:
RUNDLL32 SHELL32.DLL,SHExitWindowsEx n
Where n is replaced by a number from the list below:
0 Logoff
1 Shutdown
2 Reboot
4 Force
8 Poweroff (if supported by the hardware)
An example command to reboot a Windows 98 machine would be:
RUNDLL32 SHELL32.DLL,SHExitWindowsEx 2
By Matt on March 5th, 2008 at 7:15 pm #
I was just wondering i’m a teacher at a school and we have computers in our library. I have been seeing students on sites that they are not suppose to be on. So can I shutdown thier computer from mine? All the computers are in the same network. Is that all I need is the computers full name.
By sarvesh on March 6th, 2008 at 12:00 pm #
my pc restarts when i shut it down…..
if i click on the turn off button it automatically restarts…..
tell me what to do
By CryingFreeMan on March 7th, 2008 at 6:02 am #
Windows 98 users type the following in the DOS box:
RUNDLL32 SHELL32.DLL,SHExitWindowsEx n
Where n is replaced by a number from the list below:
0 Logoff
1 Shutdown
2 Reboot
4 Force
8 Poweroff (if supported by the hardware)
An example command to reboot a Windows 98 machine would be:
RUNDLL32 SHELL32.DLL,SHExitWindowsEx 2
WHAT IF IN NETWORKPLACES??
By Brent Trahan on March 7th, 2008 at 7:57 am #
That won’t work across a network. Only the shutdown command.
By CryingFreeMan21 on March 8th, 2008 at 5:24 am #
what command will work across a network?? i try the remote shutdown dialog it won’t work it say’s access denied?
By CryingFreeMan on March 8th, 2008 at 8:24 am #
Can you give the command for windows 98 for how to shutdown network computer’s!??
By Willie on March 12th, 2008 at 7:40 pm #
is it possible to shutdown a pc over the internet? The remote computer doesn’t have a administrative password. I hope my questions will be answered. Thanks.
By soniya gupta on March 13th, 2008 at 1:00 am #
hello,why when i try to shutdown other network computer in command prompt will dispaly “ACCESS DENIED”…plz tell me how to settle this problem..tq
By Brent Trahan on March 13th, 2008 at 6:51 am #
Yes you can shutdown a computer over the internet but I highly discourage that, especially if the administrator account doesn’t have a password. If you allow your computer to be shutdown from the internet you open up your computer to the world. It’ll be hacked in no time.
To shutdown a computer across the internet you’ll need a static IP address, and a router with the ability to forward ports. Most people with residential internet don’t have a static IP.
By Turker Yilmaz on March 20th, 2008 at 1:50 am #
For the case of VISTA network, although you have the same account in the remote computer with administrator privileges, if the remote computer has UAC enabled then you’ll get “access denied”. Disable UAC from the remote computer and send the command as explained in this thread.
By Turker Yilmaz on March 20th, 2008 at 1:55 am #
By the way, the UAC must be disabled from the remote computer account with the same name that you are trying to shutdown from your local computer.
By kamlesh on March 20th, 2008 at 7:56 am #
hi
i want for u that my local user give time for work after the time complte then the computer shutdown (pc)give time the pc is start only
By Brent Trahan on March 20th, 2008 at 8:03 am #
Try setting up time limits.
By drew patel on March 26th, 2008 at 9:35 pm #
it says the network path was not found
By Wim on March 27th, 2008 at 2:25 am #
Dear Brent,
First of all I would like to compliment you on answering all questions people ask you. Great job!
My question is: I want to shutdown 72 computers by batch. I created batchfiles containing 10 computers to shutdown. But, when a computer is not turned on, the batchfile, or rather the shutdown command, will wait for appr. 1 minute before proceeding to the next computer.
Is there a way of minimizing that delay time?
By Brent Trahan on March 27th, 2008 at 4:37 am #
Not that I know of. I’ll check on that for you Wim.
By Dave on April 2nd, 2008 at 10:26 am #
I’m still not having any luck trying to restart a VISTA machine from an XP box.
I shut off UAC and the firewall on VISTA.
Created a user with the same name on the XP box.
I’m still getting the Access Denied message when sending the shutdown command from a command window.
did I miss something?
By Brent Trahan on April 2nd, 2008 at 10:36 am #
I haven’t had a chance to test this on Vista yet, but a previous comment on this guide says UAC needs to be turned off in order for the shutdown command to work. I’ll check on this when I get a chance.
By Omar on April 3rd, 2008 at 7:39 pm #
Ok, I’m still having trouble with this. I do everything exactly you said and everything works, except when i type in the computer name of the computer i want to shutdwon it still doesn’t work. i go to add computer and type in \\(the computer name) then press ok do everything i want and press ok and it says failed. what do i do? do i take of the period at t he end if the computer name has a period? I do have administration rights on this computer i even went to start>run>\\(my computer name) and it works. Please help me out
By Amrit on May 7th, 2008 at 10:48 pm #
i have 50 pc in my network all in domain but not login in domain all login in administrator.so can i do the remote shutdown or restart any pc…..
By Brent Trahan on May 8th, 2008 at 6:56 am #
Sure. As long as the administrator account on all 50 PCs use the same password as the computer you’re using to remotely shut them down.
By bob on May 20th, 2008 at 7:00 pm #
well when i try to shutdown a second computer in the network it says the network path was not found and i think im typing it right im typing shutdown -m //mycomputer -s and when i try to do shutdown -i it says failed and i dont know how to change the passwords so could someone please help me???
By tee on May 27th, 2008 at 5:44 pm #
how do i shutdown the computer in the command prompt without bringing up the remote shutdown window?
By Brent Trahan on May 27th, 2008 at 7:19 pm #
Look under the section “Shutdown Command via Command Prompt”.
By Chester L on June 19th, 2008 at 9:17 am #
I have been doing some of my own research on this item and thought I would share my findings. I have seen quite a few posts “My user name and password are IDENTICAL for both machines but I still get ‘Access Denied’!” The problem my be corrected by a registry change. See the steps below; I have 2 PC’s and a server at home running Vista/XP/Server 2003 and about 4 more XP machines running under VMWare and the shutdown command worked for all of them after changing this entry in the registry.
1) Start - Run - CMD
2) Type “Regedit” in ‘Open’ dialog box; hit enter
3) In the registry editor navigate to:
My Computer/hkey_local_machine/system/currentcontrolset/control/lsa (ensure you SELECT the ‘Lsa’ folder)
4) find the entry for “forceguest”
5) This entry will probably read “1″ (either Hex or Decimal); change the entry to “0″
Hope this resolves the issue for some of you out there. It works great for me and I’m planning to write a script to shut down all the machines at once.
By eran on June 26th, 2008 at 2:14 pm #
this proeblem has nothing to do with the UAC on a vista computer
actually i’ve got one computer running vista and another one with xp
no problem to remote shutdown the vista (even with firewall and UAC)
but i’m having a problem on the other way, can’t figure it out
the xp computer would not turn off by the vista
access denied, eventhough i tried all your solutions…. nothing works for me….
i’m giving up…..
By eran on June 26th, 2008 at 2:44 pm #
as i said i was just about to give up…… when i came across with a solution somewhere….
you can manualy add the user with the privilege to force a remote shutdown….
on the computer you are about to turn off:
Open Administrative Tools \ “Local Security Settings”. Navigate to Security Settings \ Local Policies \ User Rights Assignment. Double-click “Force shutdown from a remote system” in the right pane. Click “Add User or Group”. and add the computer that runs the remote shutdown command. make sure to do the checking.
that works for me!
hope its good for some people here…
By Bruce on June 30th, 2008 at 10:09 am #
In referance to the remote shutdown. I found if you edit the local policy to allow selected users to shutdown the system you can accomplish the remote reboot option. I also added the shutdown.exe to the system32 folder. For testing I just added the everyone group to the local policy of the system. I know huge security risk but it works. I ran the following line:
shutdown -m \\computername -r -f -d p:2:4
The -d p:2:4 is for the 2003 servers and it won’t cause issues with 2000 servers, this enters a planned shutdown entry for the gui that pops up on the 2003 servers after a reboot.
you could use:
shutdown -m \\computername -r -t 30 -f -d p:2:4 -c “this computer will reboot in 30 seconds”
You should be able to find the shutdown file on an 2003 server and copy to a 2000 server, just to keep the batch file simple.
Another tip is you can type the comands in a word document, hit enter at the end of each command line. You can then copy and paste the infomation to a comand prompt and it will run each line in the sequence they were typed in the word doc. Just rember to hit enter after every command you want to run in the word doc.
By Bruce on June 30th, 2008 at 10:16 am #
I just read tees post.
You can use my earlier posted method. The command to shutdown teh computer would be:
shutdown -m \\computername -f -d p:2:4
This will force the open applications to close and shutdown the computer.
The better option would be:
shutdown -m \\computername -r -f -d p:2:4
This reboots the remote box and forces the applications closed, both of these do not display any kind of window.
By Ken Wee on July 16th, 2008 at 5:54 am #
i need help…i cant seem to use this guide. when i try to access the host pc from the network a password is being asked…but there’s no password in admin account of the host PC…how can i fix this…thanks…
By Brent Trahan on July 16th, 2008 at 7:48 am #
Use Administrator as the user account and leave the password blank.
By Raj on July 29th, 2008 at 6:00 am #
there are domain server and my pc is full admin rights . but i will shutdown any pc in my network but the arrer show. “the natwork path wad not found and access is denied”
plz provied me solucation.
By sivaji n on August 6th, 2008 at 6:15 am #
dear sir
The below commend is used to locally shutdown
Windows 98 users type the following in the DOS box:
RUNDLL32 SHELL32.DLL,SHExitWindowsEx n
Where n is replaced by a number from the list below:
0 Logoff
1 Shutdown
2 Reboot
4 Force
8 Poweroff (if supported by the hardware)
An example command to reboot a Windows 98 machine would be:
RUNDLL32 SHELL32.DLL,SHExitWindowsEx 2
This is execuite my question is how can you shutdown 98 PC’s in Remotely
By seby on August 7th, 2008 at 2:49 am #
I want to shutdown only the logged in users in the domain. I also want to get the list of the logged clients in the domain.
By Louis on October 6th, 2008 at 8:06 am #
I want my users to have the option to abort the remote shutdown how can i do this? this is my batch file that works fine but can’t seem to get the -a option going
shutdown -m \\computer1 -s -f
By Brent Trahan on October 6th, 2008 at 8:12 am #
Your users would have to open the command prompt and type shutdown -a.
By ALex on October 8th, 2008 at 9:54 pm #
i tried using ure shutdown -i command and after i press ok i get this error on my command promp sayin… the network path was not found..? what am i suposed to do to fix it? and i do have admin rights on that computer
By KATHY P. on November 5th, 2008 at 2:13 am #
My son put a disk in my computer.Then he didn’t shut it off properly.When turned on the screen it ‘ts black with white writing on it , saying disk reading error. I followed the instructions,yet nothing happened. I can’t get the menu to come up.I pressed f8 and others and Ivé turned it on and off as fast as I can.I’m in my 50s and new to this. Can you help me in a way I can understand? Thank you very much,Kathy.(I don’t mean that I have to understand you,, only what to press to fix the problem- no hightech words )
By Brent Trahan on November 5th, 2008 at 7:01 am #
Try removing the disk and turn the computer back on.
By Jeff S on November 10th, 2008 at 1:01 am #
Just sharing my experience with remote shutdown on WindowsXP Pro. First, in my case at least, the username and password does not have to be the same on both machines. I first used the command:
shutdown -m \\computer -r -f
and I received the Access Denied message. Relizing I was not being asked for a username and password I used Network Place and browsed to the machine I was wanting to shutdown, double clicked the icon, and then I was asked for username and password. Upon entering a valid name/password for the remote computer the above command worked like a champ.
Basically, if you can browse anything on the remote computer, and you signed in using an account with admin rights, the above command should work.
By Drever44 on November 18th, 2008 at 1:28 am #
I have a server running xp home sp3 with apachie2.2 server running and a workstation running xp pro sp3. On the server I have automated several routine tasks such as synctoy to update my network website from my workstation and ccleaner to clean the temps and also defragging all drives in that order even got it all to append to a log file on my workstation so I can monitor the progress of the updates and what not. Setup in the bios of the workstation timed and date to startup to allow all this to happen in the wee hours of the morning when I am less likely to be scripting or using the workstation.
I have read this entire thread from top to bottom 3 times trying all possible suggestions and still I get an access denied either way I try to use the shutdown command from server to workstation and workstation to server. Audviously I am missing something here. Also have read other threads in regards to this problem and still nothing seams to work. Oh except if I choose the computer that I am executing the command on. Then it works fine, which is useless to me.
I tried making a separate bat file on the machine to execute the shutdown command locally how ever like in one of the above comments I get an endless loop that I have to ctrl-c to stop. Thinking I could just call the second bat from the first.
I have tried everything. Even got chin deep in the Microsoft tek notes on this subject and trying to figure out the privileges and got no where. I can access either machine in any way threw the network but still no luck with the shutdown command.
This is Greek to me (I’m not Greek) perhaps you may shed some light on my issue and throw me a bone so to speak
Both computer have same user names and passwords logged in. both users are administrators. and also diabled all firewalls and virous software.
By Karen on November 20th, 2008 at 10:30 am #
I am a rookie at this. I have read you entire thread. I want to make sure I understand before I start trying to shutdown remote computers. I am on a network with a Windows 2003 Server, a Windows 2000 terminal services server (RDP), 20 clients running XP Pro.
All my computers have an admin account with the same password.
Not all my users have administrative rights, but there is an administrative account on the computers. Any user can be logged on to the remote when this remote shutdown is run and they will be logged off and then the computer will be shut down correct? I will be running the remote shutdown from my 2003 server nightly at about 8:00 pm. I would like to restart them at about 6:30 am. Is that possible?
Why not just set up a batch file to run on each individual computer at a scheduled time? I know it would mean going to each computer and setting it up but I shouldn’t have the Access Denied errors.
By Brent Trahan on November 25th, 2008 at 9:12 am #
It’s easier to maintain one big shutdown script than many shutdown scripts on a bunch of computers.
By John on December 19th, 2008 at 8:53 am #
thanks for this
I connected a vpn client on a remote machine (wasn’t thinking clearly) and couldn’t re-connect to it or reboot it.
Logged in as an Admin on another machine and connected to the management console for the machine in question but the option to reboot was not available.
However, I was able to kill the process for the vpn client, allowing me to reconnect and reboot.
:)
By noj17 on December 22nd, 2008 at 2:18 am #
thanks for the info every one!
i used both regedit methods and the local security setting and remote shutdown is now working..
Regards,
noj17
By yasser on December 30th, 2008 at 5:34 am #
please help me in that
i want run the command file befor my pc is shutdown
and that file is for shutdown other pc at the same network
and when i try to do that from ( gpedit.smc )useing a shutdown scripts
its not working bec/ the pc is closeing all network services befor run the script file
please help