When you install or uninstall an application, it may need a restart of your PC. You will be prompted to save your work as Windows will shut down or restart depending on the action that triggered it. You will get messages like, “The system is shutting down. Please save your Work.” Or something like “Restart your computer to finish installing important Windows Update”
Or you may have clicked on the shutdown button by accident before saving your work. This calls a need to abort the shutdown or reboot function. Here I will discuss how to cancel Windows shutdown.
How To Cancel Windows Shutdown?
The shutdown of your windows is initiated by a process called ‘shutdown.exe’ that is executed when you click on the shutdown button. This process will then force close all other application processes that are running and then kill itself to shut down your computer.
To abort the shutdown, you need to abort this process. However, there is no option to do so from the Shutdown Event Tracker Windows interface. You will need to enter a command in the command line interpreter (Command Prompt) to cancel Windows shutdown.
# Solution 1: Using Command Prompt
You can use the command prompt within the timeout period to abort a shutdown of your Windows device. To do so, follow these steps:
- Open an elevated Command Prompt. To do so, open a Run dialog (Win + R), type cmd and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to open the command prompt with administrator privileges.
- Type the following command to abort the shutdown:
shutdown.exe /a
Hot Tip: You can see the whole list of command switches available for any particular command by typing /? at the end of the command.
However, you need very fast typing skills as the default timeout period is very little to perform this task.
A better solution would be to create a keyboard shortcut that you can press after hitting the shortcut key to cancel Windows shutdown.
# Solution 2: Create A Windows Shortcut
Pressing three keys will naturally take a lesser time to execute than to open a command prompt and then typing a command. Now let’s talk about how to create a shortcut button to cancel Windows shutdown.
- Select any empty area on your desktop and right-click on it.
- Hover over New >
- Select Shortcut.
4. In the Type location dialogue box, enter the following text:
shutdown.exe -a
5. In the next name the shortcut dialogue box, enter the following name for the shortcut:
Abort Shutdown.
6. Click Finish.
7. Right-click on the shortcut you just created. Select Properties.
8. Under the Shortcut tab, locate the Shortcut key.
9. By default, you will see the text None Click on it.
10. Press X.
You will see that a keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Alt + X is assigned to the shortcut.
11. Click Apply and then select OK.
You have now created a keyboard shortcut to abort the Windows shutdown.
Note: this shortcut also works only in the timeout period only. Remember that you only have a few moments to activate this shortcut and prevent Windows from shutting down.
If you are uncomfortable with the time restraints associated with Windows shutdown, you can create a shortcut with a custom timeout period of your liking.
- Create shutdown shortcut
- Select any empty area on your desktop and right-click on it.
- Hover over New >
- Select Shortcut.
- In the Type location dialogue box, enter the following text:
shutdown.exe -s -t 30
5. Name the shortcut Shutdown.
Note: Change the value in seconds as you like.
This will create a shortcut to shut down your PC after 30 seconds. When you execute this shortcut, a notification prompt for the shutdown will be shown.
Tip: You can also create a similar shortcut for restart by replacing the -s with -r and for log off by replacing -s with -l.
Conclusion
The need to cancel Windows shutdown is seen when users may accidentally hit the shutdown button instead of some other key and have not saved their work. Using the guide given above, now you know how to cancel Windows shutdown using the 2 easy fixes. Comment below if you found this post useful and want to discuss further the same.
