Where Windows 7 displays its power button in a prominent place on its Start Menu, both Windows and the new Windows 8.1 make you perform several actions just to turn your computer off and they’re all buried. To get to the power button in Windows 8, you must pull out the Charms menu, click the Settings charm, click the Power button and then select Shutdown or Restart. In Windows 8.1, you can also shut down by right clicking on the Start button and selecting Shut down from the Shut down or sign out menu, but that’s still a couple of clicks away.
Fortunately, there’s an easy way to put the shutdown and restart functions just one click away from the desktop and Start screen. Just create shortcuts for both actions using the following steps:
Table A
|
Menu option
|
Command
|
| Shut down | shutdown.exe /s /t 00 |
| Restart | shutdown.exe /r /t 00 |
| Log off | shutdown.exe /l |
| Sleep or Hibernate | rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState |
| Lock | rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation |
| Switch user | tsdiscon.exe |
Creating the shortcuts
In order to use the taskbar toolbar, you'll need to create all your shortcuts in a single folder. To make it simple, I created a folder called Shut down and then used Create Shortcut wizard to create my shortcuts in that folder. To do so, just right click on the background and choose the New | Shortcut command. When you see the first screen in the Create Shortcut wizard, type the first command from Table A in the text box, as shown in Figure B.Figure B
Type the first command from Table A in the text box.
In this command, the /s is the shut down parameter and the /t 00 is the timer parameter which instructs the shut down command to shut down the system in 00 seconds or immediately. Once you type the command, you can click Next. When you see the second screen in the Create Shortcut wizard, type Shut down as shown in Figure C. To complete the wizard, just click Finish.Figure C
Name this shortcut Shut down.
Once you create the Shutdown shortcut, you'll create the Restart shortcut, as shown in Figure D. In this command, the /r is the restart parameter and the /t 00 is the timer parameter which instructs the shut down command to restart the system immediately.Figure D
The /r parameter instructs the shutdown command to restart the computer.
You can then create the Log off shortcut as shown in Figure E. In this command, the /l is the log off parameter.Figure E
The /l parameter instructs the shutdown command to Log off the computer.
You'll then create the Hibernate shortcut as shown in Figure F. In this command line, rundll32.exe activates the Power Profile (powerprof.dll) and then launches the default power saving mode (SetSuspendState). Keep in mind that case is important in this last command - you must use both upper and lower case letters.Figure F
You must use both upper and lower case letters in last part of the Hibernate command.
You can now create the Lock shortcut as shown in Figure G. In this command line, rundll32.exe accesses the currently logged on user's session (user32.dll) and locks the session (LockWorkStation). Again, case is important in the last command.Figure G
The last part of the Lock command must use both upper and lower case letters.
The Switch user shortcut is quite simple, as you can see in Figure H. There is only the tsdiscon.exe command - no parameters.Figure H
The Switch user shortcut has a simple command.
Once you have created your shortcuts, you can assign each one a unique icon if you wish. To do so, right click on the shortcut icon and select the Properties command. When you see the Properties dialog box, click the Change Icon button to open the Change Icon dialog box. Then, click the Browse button. You can find a host of icons in the Shell32.dll file, as shown in Figure I.Figure I
The Shell32.dll file contains a host of icons.
Creating the toolbar
Now that you have your shortcuts created in the Shut down folder, you can create the toolbar. Right-click on the taskbar and then select the Toolbars | New toolbar command, as shown in Figure J.Figure J
Select the New toolbar command.
When you do, you'll see the New Toolbar - Choose a folder dialog box and will need to locate and select the Shutdown folder, as shown in Figure K.Figure K
In the New Toolbar - Choose a folder dialog box, just select the Shutdown folder.
Your new Shut down menu will now appear on the right edge of the taskbar, as shown in Figure L. You can leave it there or you can move it to the far left if you want. For me it works best on the right side of the taskbar. Regardless of where you place it, you can now quickly and easily Shut down, Restart, Lock, Log off, Hibernate, or Switch user right from the Windows 8 desktop.Figure L
- Navigate to the desktop.
- Right click on the desktop and select New -> Shortcut. A shortcut menu appears.
- Enter shutdown /s /t 0 (that’s a zero) in the location box and hit Next.
- Enter a name for the shortcut and click Finish. A new shortcut will appear on your desktop.
- Right click on the shortcut and select Properties. A dialog box appears.
- Click Change Icon under the Shortcut tab then Click Ok in warning box that says shutdown.exe contains no icons.
- Select an Icon from the list of available images Click Ok twice (once to close the Change Icon window and once to close Properties window). Your shortcut will now have an icon.
- Right click the shortcut and select Pin to Start. The shutdown icon will now appear on your Start screen.
- Drag the shutdown icon to a prominent place on your Start screen. We recommend putting it in the first column to the left so you will always see it.
- Right click the icon and select Pin to Taskbar if you want the shortcut to live on your desktop’s taskbar as well.
- Repeat the previous steps to create a Restart button. Use the command “shutdown /r /t 0″ in the location field.
