Pin a Shut Down PC Shortcut to the Start Screen

Today I'm going to make my life easier by using a Windows 8 RT tablet, or any Windows 8 device, both on its Modern UI interface and on the desktop, greatly streamlining access toshutdown, blocking, hibernation orders, etc. Putting a single touch or click, the operation that represents by default in the operating system, at least four clicks.

First to the desktop, create the shortcut

The first thing I have to tell you is that you can't create a shortcut on Start (Modern UI) without going through the desktop That is, first I have to create the shortcut file on the desktop or anywhere on the hard disk and then send it to Start.

So the first thing I do is, in this example on the desktop, right-click anywhere on the screen and choose from the context menu that I want to create a " Shortcut " . In this way, I start an assistant that first tells me which file I want to launch.

What I want is to be able to turn off the device and for this I am going to call the system program “ shutdown.exe ”, indicating it by parameters to shut down the computer (“ /s ”), without any waiting time to initiate the shutdown (“ /t 000 ”).

In the next screen I enter the name of the shortcut, which in this case I have put “Turn off the computer”. And with this I already have my shortcut that shuts down my computer with a single touch.

But the truth is that the shortcut icon is not only ugly, it doesn't tell me unequivocally what it doesSo I get the context menu and choose “ Properties -> Change Icon ” and, after accepting in the alert window that tells me that there is no icon available and that it will look in the default library. In it I choose the “ Power ” icon to leave my perfect shortcut.

Pinning it on Start and more operations

Now I want to have this shortcut on my Start, so that when I'm using the Windows 8 touch interface, I can turn off my computer with just one fingerAnd this is as easy as getting the shortcut's context menu back and, at the top, telling it to pin it to Start.

This is how I get a Title at Start, at the end of all my programs, which I can place wherever I like best and which, by clicking on it, turns off the device.

What's more, as a fancy thing, I can in turn anchor this Title in the Desktop command bar and thus have the system operation accessible in both interfaces, closing the navigation circle.

But, even though it is very useful, turning off the equipment is just one of the operations that are interesting to have at hand and so in the small list that I show below, you have the calls that I have used forthe actions that I found most useful.

• Shutdown: shutdown.exe /s /t 000
• Restart: shutdown.exe /r /t 000
• Suspend: rundll32.exe PowrProf.dll, SetSuspendState 0, 1, 0
• Hibernate: rundll32.exe PowrProf.dll, SetSuspendState
• Lock: rundll32.exe User32.dll, LockWorkStation

When using the rundll32.exe program, access to the icon library is not direct, as in the case of shutdown.exe, so I have entered the url by hand and be able to choose the most like: %SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll

Finally, I want to thank the blog palel.es from where I have completed this article with more information.

In XatakaWindows | Tricks Windows 8