This article will show you how to utilize the remote shutdown command tool in Windows to remotely shutdown or restart a local or networked computer. This tin can exist very useful sometimes if you have multiple computers at habitation or on your network that you want to quickly shutdown or restart.

You can even remotely shutdown a estimator over the Net, but you lot would first have to either VPN into the network or into the target computer yous desire to shut down. I'k not going to encompass VPNs in this commodity, only if that'southward something you want to do, experience complimentary to Google it.

You tin perform a remote shutdown from the command prompt using the shutdown command and its associated switches, from the remote shutdown dialog box, or from a batch file. I'll go through all 3 methods in this article.

Remote Shutdown Overview

In lodge to get this to work, there are a couple of steps you lot have to complete beginning otherwise you'll constantly get an Access is Denied (5) error message and it volition bulldoze you mad.

Step 1: Firstly, in order to remotely shutdown a calculator on your network, yous'll need to make sure y'all have Administrative access to the target computer. If you lot're on a home network, the all-time way to practise this is to make sure all computers are in the aforementioned workgroup and that they all have at least one Ambassador account with the same username and password.

You don't have to apply the congenital-in administrator account on either computer for this to work, but the user business relationship you exercise employ on both computers has to be office of the Administrators grouping on the local reckoner. If you go to Control Console and click on User Accounts and it says Ambassador or Local Administrator, then you lot're fine. Again, the names of the user accounts and the password have to be the same.

administrator

If you're in a corporate environs with a domain, you will probably want to login using the domain administrator account. Using those credentials, y'all should exist able to shutdown whatsoever other computer on the network, even if they are logged in using different credentials.

Stride 2: The second step is to turn on File and Printer Sharing and to permit it through the Windows firewall. To do this, go to Control Console and click on Network and Sharing Eye first. Click on the Change advanced sharing settings link in the left carte du jour and select the radio button for Turn on network discovery and Plow on file and printer sharing.

network sharing

Go back to the chief Control Panel window and click on Windows Firewall. Click on the Allow a programme or characteristic through Windows Firewall in the left menu.

file and printer sharing

Brand sure you but bank check the Home/Work (Private) box and not Public. Y'all practice not need to let anything else through the firewall. You might read on other sites to allow WMI, Remote Shutdown, Network Discovery, etc, merely I've tested it without whatever of those and it works just fine.

Step three: Lastly, if you are trying to target a Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8 computer remotely, yous will need to modify the registry. Unless y'all do this, information technology only won't piece of work. Y'all will only get the Access is Denied message no matter what.

Open the registry editor by going to Start and typing in regedit. At present navigate to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE – SOFTWARE – Microsoft – Windows – CurrentVersion – Policies – System

Right-click on System on the left hand side and choose New – DWORD (32-bit) Value.

new registry key

A new value will pop up at the lesser in the correct window and the text will be highlighted. Change the name toLocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy and press Enter. Now double-click on it and modify the value from 0 to 1.

local account token filter policy

Click OK and close out of the registry. You don't need to restart the computer as the changes should take effect immediately. This registry key is needed considering in Windows Vista and college, an ambassador account is stripped of its credentials when connecting remotely. This volition allow the account to remain with administrative privileges.

Y'all'll besides read on other sites to get-go the Remote Registry service if that's not running and to edit the local security policy past calculation the Anybody group to Forcefulness shutdown from a remote system policy setting. In my testing on Windows vii and eight, there was no need to consummate these tasks and yous really shouldn't because it opens up your organisation to potential hackers.

Obviously, you'll as well need to know all the names of the other computers on the network. You can do that by going to Control Panel and then clicking on Organization.

computer name

Remote Shutdown via Command Prompt

The shutdown control is most flexible when using it from the command prompt because you tin can add a bunch of switches to it, which let y'all to customize the behavior. Get to Outset, then Run, and type in CMD. Y'all tin see the list of switches past typing shutdown /? in the command window.

shutdown command help

You lot take to utilise at least i switch in order for the command to exercise anything. Basically you would type in shutdown /x /y /z where ten, y, z are letters in the list above.

Hither are a couple of the most common command switches and the actions they perform:

/s: Shuts down the estimator

/r: Restarts the computer

/yard \\computername: The target remote computer to close downwardly

/f: Forces programs to close immediately

/t: Will wait a certain amount of time in seconds before shutting down or restarting

/a: Aborts a shutdown if you used a previous shutdown command with /t.

Then for remotely shutting down another machine on your network, you would type into the command prompt the following commands:

shutdown /g \\computername /r /f

This command will restart the computer named computername and force all programs that are still running to close.

shutdown –thousand \\computername –s –f –c "The reckoner will restart, please relieve all work." –t threescore

This control will shutdown the computer named computername , force all programs that are running to shut, evidence a message to the user and countdown 60 seconds before information technology shuts down.

signed out

Remote Shutdown via Shutdown Dialog

If you don't similar all those switches or using the command prompt in general, and then you tin bring up the shutdown dialog box. You can do that hands by just using the /i command switch for the shutdown command.

shutdown i parameter

The remote shutdown dialog will at present appear as shown below.

remote shutdown dialog

Click the Add or Browse button to add together computers to the list. You lot can then run the commands on the entire batch of computers. If yous click Add, y'all'll need to enter in the network proper noun of the computer in the format \\computername or just computername, either works.

add computers shutdown

Of course, you need to know the actual computer name, which I mentioned how you tin determine higher up. So add as many computers to the list as you lot like and then set your options. Y'all can shutdown, restart or annotate unexpected shutdown.

You can as well display a warning, if you like, for however many seconds you choose and you can type in a annotate at the lesser which will exist displayed to users. That's about it!

Remote Shutdown via Batch File

Finally, y'all tin create a batch file so that can do all of this by just running the file. Alternatively, y'all tin can schedule the batch file to exist run at specific intervals or during specific events using Job Scheduler.

Just go to Notepad and type in the commands you would take typed into the command prompt:

shutdown –m \\computername1 –r
 shutdown –thousand \\computername2 –r
 shutdown –m \\computername3 –r

Then simply save the file with a .BAT file extension by choosing All Files for Save as blazonand add together .bat to the terminate of the file name.

bat file shutdown

This will restart iii computers on my home network. You can put every bit many commands into the batch file as y'all like, then experience gratuitous to experiment!

I've written an all-encompassing post on how to use batch files in Windows, so read that if you are not familiar with batch files or task scheduler. Enjoy!