Shutdown Windows Using Command Prompt Remotely
An often overlooked command in Windows is to shutdown the computer using command prompt or batch scripting. This can be useful for shutting down a computer remotely, rebooting a computer while logged in via remote desktop or setting a scheduled task to shutdown your pc at a specified time every day
The Shutdown Command
- First click start, then run and type cmd and OK
- This will open command prompt and allow you to input the shutdown command
- Shutdown uses the following syntax:
shutdown [-i | -l | -s | -r | -a] [-f] [-m \\computername] [-t xx] [-c "comment"] [-d up:xx:yy]
Wow! thats confusing, lets break it down into the command and what the switches do
- Typing shutdown without any switches will show you the following list of switches:
- The most common switches to use are
- This will shutdown the computer:
shutdown -s
- This will reboot the computer:
shutdown -r
- This will shutdown the computer after 10 seconds(Default is 30):
shutdown -s -t 10
- This will shutdown the remote computer PC001:
shutdown -s -m \\PC001
- This will shutdown the computer with the comment “autoreboot”:
shutdown -s -c "autoreboot"
Now you know the switches and how to shut off your pc or a remote pc give it a go. Remember that you need administrative permissions on the machine your are shutting down.
Let me know if this helped you! Leave a comment.

