Four Easy Ways to Shutdown Computer Remotely
How to shutdown computer remotely? Read this article to learn about 4 methods and operation guides for remotely shutting down the computer.
By Ellie / Updated on October 27, 2022
Why do you need to shutdown computer remotely?
What will you do if you forgot to turn off the desktop computer at home? Or what will you do if you want to control the time that your children spend playing games on the computer?
Then, you need to shutdown computer remotely. Although there are many ways to shutdown remote PC, some of them are very complicated in operation. Here in this post, we’ll introduce 4 easy ways to shutdown computer remotely to you.
Preparation before shutting down computer remotely
Before shutting down computer remotely, we need to complete the relevant preparations. The very first thing is that we need to ensure the management authority of the target computer (the computer that needs to be shut down remotely).
- You need to have administrator rights on the target computer.
- If you are on a home network, make sure that two computers are in the same workgroup, and that they all have an administrator account with the same credentials (user name and password).
- You need to find out the PC name and IP address of the target computer.
- You need to turn on file and printer sharing first and change the registry key to prepare for the subsequent remote shutdown of the computer.
Part 1. Turn on file and printer sharing
Turning on file and printer sharing is a necessary preparation step. It helps the target computer to receive the shutdown command to achieve the purpose of shutting down it remotely.
Step 1. Press Win + R to invoke the Run dialog box. Type in “control panel” and hit OK.
Step 2. At the top right of the main interface of Control Panel, change the view mode to Large icons and find Network and Sharing Center.
Step 3. On the left pane, click Advanced sharing settings. Turn on network discovery as well as file and printer sharing. And then click Save changes.
Step 4. Go back to the Control Panel and find Windows Defender Firewall.
Step 5. On the left pane, click Allow an app or feature through Windows Defender Firewall.
Step 6. Click Change settings, find File and Printer Sharing, and then tick Private.
Part 2. Change Registry Key
Changing the Registry Key allows the commands entered on the local computer to be executed on the target computer to shutdown computer remotely.
Step 1. Press Win + R to invoke the Run dialog box. Type in “regedit” and hit OK to open Registry Editor.
Step 2. Navigate here: Computer > HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Policies > System. Right-click System, then click New and choose DWORD (32-bit) Value.
Step 3. Rename it as “LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy”. Then input 1 in the Value data field
Part 3. Find the IP address and the computer name
Step 1. Press Win + R to invoke the Run dialog box. Type in “cmd” and press OK. Then type in “ipconfig” and press Enter. Now you can see a group of IP addresses, of which the IPv4 address is the one you need.
Step 2. Then type “query user” to see the username.
How to shutdown computer remotely [4 methods]
After completing the above preparations, you can follow the following 4 methods to shutdown computer remotely. The 4 methods are:
- Use command line.
- Use Remote Shutdown Dialog.
- Use batch files (mainly for multiple computers).
- Use Windows Remote Desktop Connection.
Method 1. Shutdown computer remotely via cmd
Command Prompt (cmd), as a feature of Windows, can provide an entry point for entering MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System) commands and other computer commands. Just like restart remote computer via cmd, by entering a valid command, you can achieve the purpose of shutting down computer remotely.
Step 1. Click Start, find Windows System, and expand it. Right-click Command Prompt, select More, and click Run as administrator.
Step 2. Enter “shutdown/?” in the Command Prompt to view all shutdown and restart commands.
Step 3. Enter “shutdown -r -m \\ Machine Name -t -60” again, and the computer can be shut down remotely in one minute.
Step 4. After the command is executed, you can see the shutdown prompt pop-up window, click Close and wait for the automatic shutdown.
Method 2. Use Remote Shutdown Dialog
The Remote Shutdown Dialog needs to be opened through the command prompt. When in use, you only need to enter the target computer name and select shutdown. Compared with the cmd command line, the method is easier.
Step 1. Type “shutdown/i” in the Command Prompt window and then press Enter. You can add the computer that you want to restart.
Step 2. Add the computer name then click OK.
Step 3. Switch the default Restart to Shutdown in the drop-down menu of "What do you want these computers to do". In addition, you can also change the display warning timer according to the situation, the default is 30 seconds. You can change the plan options and finally click OK. This method is the same as the above content, and a shutdown prompt window will also pop up. Click close, wait for the automatic shutdown.
Method 3. Use a batch file
If there are too many computers that need to shutdown remotely, it will waste a lot of time to shutdown remote computer via CMD or use PowerShell to shutdown remote computer. To do this, you can use timer settings to create a batch file and let it execute at a specific time.
Step 1. Use Notepad to enter a command to shut down the computer, such as “shutdown–m \\computername1–r”, where computer name needs to be replaced by the target computer name, and the number behind is used to distinguish different computers.
Step 2. Save the notepad with the extension name “.bat” and save it as all file formats with the name “restart.bat”, which can realize remote shutdown of multiple computers.
Method 4. Use Windows Remote Desktop
Windows Remote Desktop allows you to control any PC remotely anytime, anywhere, not only to provide remote technical support for others, but also to process important files remotely, which helps improve work efficiency.
Part 1. Set up the host computer
Step 1. Navigate here: Start > Settings > System > Remote Desktop, and turn on Enable Remote Desktop.
Step 2. Find User accounts and click Select users that can remotely access this PC.
Step 3. After opening the Remote Desktop Users window, click Add to add users who are allowed to access this computer (you need to add already existing users to realize remote desktop).
Part 2. Start remote control on the client computer
Step 1. The client computer doesn’t need any configuration. Just search for Remote Desktop Connection in the Search box. And then open it.
Step 2. Enter the IP address and user name in the Remote Desktop Connection interface to achieve connection (if you don’t know what your computer’s IP address and user name are, follow the tutorial below).
Step 3. After you’ve achieved the connection successfully, you could see the screen of the remote computer. Click the Windows logo in the lower-left corner, and then click Shut down to turn off the remote computer.
Why does the remote shutdown of the computer fail?
Some of you may still not shut down the computer remotely after following the above steps. This may be caused by the following reasons:
- The domain administrator has developed a group policy to prevent a remote shutdown.
- Remote management or $ADMIN sharing is disabled.
- The account you log in does not have administrative rights.
On the whole, although there are many ways to shut down computers remotely, they all have certain operational requirements, and the preliminary preparation steps are relatively complicated. Therefore, it is recommended to use a simpler method of remotely shutting down the computer—AnyViewer.
The easiest way to shutdown computer remotely: AnyViewer
If you think the above 4 methods are too cumbersome, you might as well try AnyViewer, another free option for shutting down computers remotely. It is applicable to multiple Windows versions, including Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7 and Windows Server 2022/2019/2016/2012 R2. Compared with Windows Remote Desktop, you don’t need an IP address or user name to shutdown computer remotely with AnyViewer, which further simplifies the operation steps.
Preparation work:
- Connect the client computer (the controller computer) and the host computer (the controlled computer) to the Internet.
- Download and install AnyViewer on the client computer and the host computer respectively.
Step 1. Launch AnyViewer on both computers. Go to Log in, and then click Sign up. (If you already have signed up on its official website, you can log in directly.)
Step 2. Fill in the signup information.
Step 3. Then you can see you successfully logged in to AnyViewer. Your device will automatically be assigned to the account you've logged in to.
Step 4. Log in to the same AnyViewer account on the two devices, then click One-click control to achieve unattended remote access.
Note: You can also upgrade your account to a Professional or Enterprise plan to enjoy more rights:
- Faster file transfer speed. Transfer speed for a free account is 500 KB/s, and for a paid account is up to 10 MB/s.
- Increasing number of files transferred in a single time.
- Larger size of a single file that can be transferred.
- More devices can be assigned to the same account for unattended remote access.
- More Currently connected devices are displayed for connection history.
- Connect in privacy mode to protect privacy.
- Initial more concurrent connections to one computer.
Step 5. Then click Operation > Shut down to shutdown the computer quickly.
Conclusion
Learning to shutdown computer remotely can be very useful for us. But some of the operations of the above 4 methods are too complicated. If you want an easy way to shutdown computer remotely, you can try to use AnyViewer. It is the free remote control software for Windows, which is the best replacement for Windows Remote Desktop.
