It sounds weird, but when you click that power button on the start menu to shut down Windows 10, you aren't shutting down Windows 10. Sure, Windows 10 goes through the motions of shutting down. And your computer sure looks like it shut down. And it sort of did, but it didn't.
Copy.com, the cloud storage service that offered near-unlimited space and huge bonuses for referrals, announced today they're shutting down on 1 May 2016 -- leaving more than a few people with dozens or hundreds of gigs of data to migrate.
If you've ever wanted to remotely reboot a Windows box from your Linux machine, the Command-Line Fu web site has you covered with the quick and easy command to use.
Windows only: Tiny utility Vista Shutdown Timer turns your computer off at the time you specify—and even fades the volume out so you can stay asleep.
Reader John writes in with a tip to prevent Windows from continuing a shutdown operation—very useful for those times you want to shutdown but you accidentally chose restart.
Windows only: Ever wish you could save energy by not just sleeping, but automatically shutting down your PC when you're not using it and it's not doing anything? With free utility AllOff, you can. AllOff monitors your mouse and keyboard usage in addition to CPU load. If you haven't used your mouse or keyboard and the CPU load is below a user-specified threshold for a certain amount of time, AllOff automatically initiates a system shutdown. The CPU monitoring functionality is perfect for those times you want to keep your computer on to finishing ripping or burning a DVD, for example, but don't want to keep your PC running all night once the process completes. Granted, this app does mirror some features already built into Windows, but if you'd like more control over automated shut down, it does the job nicely. AllOff is a free download for non-commercial use, Windows only, requires a free registration. If you like the idea but you'd like a few more options for how the shut down handled or scheduled, check out previously mentioned WinOFF.
Windows only: Ever update your system through Windows Update or install a new piece of software, and when the process completes, your system automatically shuts down or reboots? Of course you have. It's annoying, right? Free application ShutdownGuard addresses this problem by preventing Windows from automatically shutting down, rebooting, or logging off without confirmation. Each time it prevents a shutdown action, you'll see an alert in your system tray asking if you really want to shutdown. If you do, click the alert. If not, just keep on keeping on. The lightweight ShutdownGuard is a free download, Windows only. ShutdownGuard
We've covered how to quickly shutdown Windows from the command line or using shortcuts to shutdown.exe as a command line tool, but the Confessions of a freeware junkie weblog points out that shutdown.exe can also be used to great effect through it's lesser-known graphical interface. In fact, the graphical utility provides a simple interface to remotely shutdown one or several computers on your network, making it a particularly useful tool if you need to perform some network maintenance. It may not be something you use all the time, but this built-in tool is handy to have on hand. Did you know? Windows Shutdown.exe has a built-in GUI
Linux only: Want to have your system shut down at bed time, or restart while you're away? GShutdown, a free Linux utility, lets you tell your system to turn off, restart, or log off at a specified time and date, after a certain delay, or upon a specific action being run. You can tell GShutdown to run a command before doing its thing, and users with older systems can specify the terminal command used to bring everything to a halt. GShutdown is a free download for Linux systems, available in many repositories and pre-packaged at the link below. GShutdown
From the 35th Chapter of "Windows Can Be Annoying In Over-Protecting Your Computer": Once in a while (or all too often for some unlucky souls), a normal shutdown can be registered as a "crash" by Windows, leading it to restart instead of shut down. To prevent this, you need only uncheck one box in an advanced properties box, according to CNET's Dennis O'Reilly:Right-click My Computer (Computer in Vista), choose Properties>Advanced (Properties>Advanced system settings>Advanced in Vista), and click Settings under Startup and Recovery. Uncheck "Automatically restart" under System failure, and click OK.I've seen my share of XP machines run into "bad shutdown" loops this fix would help with, but one should always seek to troubleshoot the problem rather than smooth over the symptom. If you suspect a Windows Update or registry issue at the root, O'Reilly's post luckily has advice on those fronts as well.
Fixes for three of the most common Windows glitches
Reader Eric writes in with a tip to eliminate hangs and speed up the shutdown process in Windows without installing any extra software.
Whenever I tried to shutdown my work laptop it would take almost five minutes. Five minutes! Since I work in a completely locked-down environment I couldn't look to any third party applications for help. Entering the following shutdown command in the run dialog speeds up my shutdown time dramatically.
shutdown -f -t 0 The command Eric uses immediately forces any open applications to close without warning prior to Windows shutting down. Here's another way to quickly shutdown your Windows computer. Thanks, Eric!
