If you are like most Vista users you find shutting or restarting you computer to be more complicated than necessary. To make restarting or shutting down you system, along with placing the system in sleep or hibernate mode, you can create shortcuts on you desktop to easily access the shutdown options. This makes shutting down or restarting your computer a much easier task.

To create the desktop shortcut:

1. Right-click on the desktop


2. Select New then Shortcut


3. In the Shortcut Location Box type in the appropriate command from the list below and then click Next to continue.


4. In the next dialog box type the name of the shortcut that you are creating - for simplicity you should name the shortcut the name of the function you are creating the shortcut for - such as restart computer or shutdown computer.


Windows Vista Shutdown Commands

• Shutdown Computer
  Shutdown.exe -s -t 00



• Restart Computer
  Shutdown.exe -r -t 00



• Lock Workstation
  Rundll32.exe User32.dll,LockWorkStation



• Hibernate Computer
  Rundll32.exe PowrProf.dll,SetSuspendstate



• Sleep Computer
  Rundll32.exe PowrProf.dll,SetSuspendState 0,1,0


Customize Icons for Shortcuts
If you don’t like the icons that are provided for shortcuts (either for the ones created above or any other shortcut) you can change the icon to something that you like better. The procedure for changing the icon is listed below.

To Change Icon for Shortcut

1. Right-click on the icon to be changed.


2. Select Shortcut if not selected and then select Change Icon


3. Select the icon of your choice from the list or browse to select and icon in a different location


4. Click OK


If you don’t want to clutter your desktop with the shortcuts you can drag the shortcuts to the launch bar for easy access.