Do you find that turning off or restarting your computer is a bit of a hassle and requires too much handling? On Windows, you can easily create a shortcut to perform these actions with just one click!
Completely shutting down or restarting your computer are useful and beneficial operations that we certainly don’t do often enough. On a laptop, for example, simply closing the screen is quicker and instinctive, but this action simply puts the computer to sleep and although things have greatly improved, this mode still consumes a bit of power. In addition, completely turning off your computer can do it good and help resolve certain stubborn bugs, by allowing the operating system to “get back on a healthy footing”, by stopping all the background processes that can interfere with your computer. functioning.
Although turning off or restarting your PC are trivial actions on Windows, they do not have direct buttons on the desktop, and you have to make at least two or three clicks to do them. With the classic method, you have to open the menu To start upthen click on the button On Off and finally on action. It is also possible to right-click on the button To start up in the taskbar, which opens a context menu to access shutdown and restart, which is already one click less.
But if these two methods are still too long for you, it is possible to go even faster and create buttons in the taskbar to shut down or restart your PC with a single click.
How to create a shortcut to shut down or restart your Windows PC?
This operation is very simple and will take you at most a few minutes, certainly less. The principle is simply to create a shortcut on the desktop, as you would with any application, which triggers the shutdown or restart of the computer, assign it a personalized icon then pin it to the taskbar, quite simply.
► First, right-click on an empty spot on the desktop to bring up the context menu, then click New and finally on Shortcut.
► In the window that opens, in the field Enter the location of the itemcopy and paste one of the commands below, depending on what you want to do:
Shutdown.exe -s -t 00
Shutdown.exe -r -t 00
► In each of the commands above, the numbers “00” represent the time in seconds after which the action will be executed. If you want your computer to shut down or restart 5 seconds after pressing the button, change 00 to 05. Then click the button Following.
► In the next window, give a custom name to your shortcut, like “Shut down” or “Restart” depending on the command you chose in the previous step, then click the button To end.
►A new shortcut is then added to your desktop. To customize its icon, right-click on it then click on Properties.
► In the shortcut properties window, click the tab Shortcut then on the button Change icon down. If a warning message appears telling you that the file does not contain any icons, simply click the button OK to continue.
► In the small window that appears, scroll through the icons until you find one that suits you, click on it to select it then validate your choice by clicking on the button OK.
► Return to the shortcut properties window, clicking successively on the buttons Apply And OK at the bottom to validate your changes. The shortcut icon on your desktop is then modified and you can move it to put it in a place where you will not click on it inadvertently, at the top right of the screen for example.
► If you double-click this shortcut, your computer will shut down or restart depending on the command chosen previously. To add this shortcut to your taskbar, you can click on it and, while holding down the mouse button, drag it to the desired location on the taskbar. You can also right-click on it, then click Show other options in the context menu and finally on Pin to taskbar.
► A new button is then added to your taskbar and you can click directly on it to trigger the assigned action.
However, be careful with your mouse and don’t click too quickly, because this button will instantly shut down or restart your computer and you could lose your work in progress if you haven’t saved it. This is why the Shutdown and Restart buttons are by default not accessible directly from the desktop!