Ever been tired of how long it takes your computer to react when you command it to turn off?

Take back control over the machine and make this a fast no-hassle affair.

When you push the shutdown, logoff, or restart buttons through the start menu, Windows goes ahead and runs a file that shuts down the computer. But. But this is only after running several other commands before turning off. The good news is that you can bypass all the unnecessary crud and issue your command to be immediate-action-only. For fastest reaction times, here's what you can do:

1) Before it can shut down, Windows must first close all open programs.

If you close them yourself, it's usually faster.

2) Create a shortcut to Shut Down, Restart, or Log Off

1. If you're making the shortcut on your desktop, then right-click on your desktop, pick 'New', then pick 'Shortcut'

2. In the dialog box that comes up, click on 'Browse' and navigate to 'C:WINDOWSsystem32shutdown.exe'

3. Click 'Next'

4. Name this shortcut something besides 'Shut down' (i.e. 'Power Down', 'Terminate', or 'Off')

5. Click 'Finish'

6. Right-Click on the shortcut and click on 'Properties'

7. Change the Icon to the Red Square with a white symbol in it (unofficially standard shutdown graphic, this is just to minimize confusion)

8. In the 'Target' text box, append one of the following commands:

(without one of these, the shortcut will not do anything)

---> A) For Shutdown use: ' -s'

-------> (example: "C:WINDOWSsystem32shutdown.exe -s")

---> B) For Restart use: ' -r'

-------> (example: "C:WINDOWSsystem32shutdown.exe -r")

---> C) For Logging Off use: ' -l'

-------> (example: "C:WINDOWSsystem32shutdown.exe -l")

---> D) For a Timer Delay use: ' -x -t nnn'

------> where x is one of the above commands

---------> and nnn is a number in seconds

-------------> (example: "C:WINDOWSsystem32shutdown.exe -s -t 300")

-------------> (In this example, your computer will shutdown after 5 minutes)

---> E) For Aborting any of the previous commands, use: ' -a'

-------> (example: "C:WINDOWSsystem32shutdown.exe -a")

---> F) For Optional Comments in the timer dialog box, use: ' -c "Your Text" '

-------> (example: 'C:WINDOWSsystem32shutdown.exe -s -t 600 -c "This computer will self destruct in..." ')

-------> (In this example, the computer will shut down in 10 minutes until which it will display a countdown timer with the message "This computer will self destruct in...")

9. Click 'Ok'. Your Shortcut is ready to use.

I've found that its a good idea to have a seperate shortcut for each of the above commands premade and located in the same place (i.e. your desktop) for easy access. On a sidenote, the red ?X? and red Square are icons available in the default Windows XP shortcut-icon library. The Green and Blue icons for these shortcuts are not. If you would like a copy of them, they're available in the downloads section of www.RarelyPublished.com

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Never do this when your computer has just experienced any system modifications. Their is a very high risk that new data will be lost. Any active processes will be immediately annihilated. This is not 'healthy' for your computer but it works, it doesn't destroy the computer, and its fast. In the event of extreme impatience or emergencies, there are three things you can do:

Hold down the power button until the computer turns off (around 10seconds, or a 15-count in your head). If you don't want anybody to find out what was running, turn off the monitor as you are waiting the 10 seconds. If you let go of the power button before it turns off, the machine will proceed through a regular slow shutdown.

If there is a restart button, push it and immediately after push the power button. This generally takes about two seconds.

In extreme emergency, reach around to the back of the computer and pull out the thickest black cable you see coming into the computer. That is the power cable, which is usually located in the top-most part of the case, plugged in just above a 12cm-wide cooling fan. On rare ocasions, there might not be a fan, but the connection is always in the back. In terms of time, yanking of the plug depends entirely on how long it takes you to dismantle it. Once it's out, the entire machine clears off within about half a second.