Quickly Shut Down Computers on Network

How can I quickly shut down all the computers on my network?

Use the FOR command combined with the SHUTDOWN command:

​FOR /L %i in (1,1,254) DO shutdown ''192.168.0.%i 

Windows XP will let you log-off all users in one line:

​FOR /L %i in (1,1,254) DO shutdown ''192.168.0.%i /l

Change 192.168.0 to match you own Network ID.

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For Windows Server 2003 based computers you’ll need to refine the SHUTDOWN command and provide the reason for the restart or shutdown. For example, if you plan to reboot servers because of a security fix deployment you can use the following command:

​FOR /L %i in (1,1,254) DO shutdown /r /m ''192.168.0.%i /d p:2:18

Use SHUTDOWN /? for a complete list of available switches.

Note: The above scripts will cause ALL the computers on your LAN (basically, on the segment you pointed, 192.168.0.0 for the above example) without notifying their users. It will also shut down all your file servers, print servers, domain controllers, e-mail servers and all other Windows based computers. You do NOT want to do that, do you? Change the IP address range to suit YOUR needs!

You can disable other user’s ability to remotely shutdown computers by editing their respective Local Security Policy in the User Rights section, or, if you’re in a W2K domain you can edit the servers’ GPO.

Download Shutdown.exe it you don’t have it from HERE (11kb). This is a GUI version of the command:

shutdown small

Windows XP has the SHUTDOWN  command built-in, and running it as SHUTDOWN -i will bring up this console:

Many other tools will enable you to remotely shutdown a system.