What’s the fastest way to shut down Windows?

With a mouse, it takes at least two clicks, plus the time required for the various menus to appear.

The quickest Windows-shutdown technique I know of is to create a shutdown shortcut and then assign the shortcut a keystroke combination. Start by right-clicking the desktop or any folder window and choosing New > Shortcut. In the “Type the location of the item” text box, enter this line:

shutdown -s -t 0

Give the shortcut a name and click Finish. Now navigate to the shortcut you just created, right-click it, choose Properties, and under the Shortcut key, click in the “Shortcut key” box.

Now entering that keystroke combination will start Windows’ shutdown program. You can create similar shortcuts/key combinations to restart Windows, log off the current user, hibernate (in XP), or sleep (in Vista.) Here are the commands to enter in the shortcut wizard’s “Type the location of the item” text box for each action:

To restart: shutdown -r -t 0
To log off: shutdown -l -t 0
To hibernate XP: rundll32.exe PowrProf.dll, SetSuspendState Hibernate
To put Vista to sleep: %windir%\System32\rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState

You need the “-t 0” switch to start the shutdown or restart sequence immediately. Otherwise Windows will wait 20 seconds before closing shop.