• Windows Vista Home Premium

If you dislike the new Windows Vista shutdown menu, you are probably in the majority. An alternative option is to create icons that will let you shut down, lock, or restart your computer without having to mess with that stupid popup menu. Of course, Windows 7 makes the shutdown menu a lot better, but if you want a shortcut elsewhere or to assign a hotkey, this should help you out.

This tip is nothing new, and probably very old hat to most of the advanced geeks reading this feed. I’ve been asked this question so many times in the last month that I decided to finally just write it up for everybody.

First right-click on the desktop, choose New and then Shortcut. In the shortcut location box, you’ll need to enter the correct command, which I’ve listed for you below. 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 When you’ve clicked next on the above dialog, you’ll be asked to name the shortcut. Probably best to name it according to the right function. After you click Finish, you should now have a new icon that you can double-click to immediately shutdown, restart, or lock your computer. Change Shortcut Icon The default icon is really ugly, and if you want to have separate shortcuts for each function you might want to change the icon.

Windows Vista Home Premium

Ein Neustart des Explorers in allen Windows Betriebssystemen (Windows-7, 8.1, XP, Vista, Server). (Bild-1) Tastenkombination Neustart Windows Explorer zuweisen!

Right-click on the icon and choose properties.