For about as long as I can remember, one of the most frequent complaints I’ve heard about Windows is that it doesn’t have an emergency restart or shutdown option, something equivalent to the Linux reboot command. It turns out Windows emergency restart existed, hiding in plain sight, all along. In this blog post, I’ll share the secret.
The problem is that sometimes when you ask Windows to shut down or restart, the shutdown fails and the system takes forever, or effectively forever, to shut down. And when you can’t afford to wait a week for it to decide to get down to business, your only option is to hold down the power button or pull the plug.
That’s a big problem if the system is on the other side of town, or the other side of the world. Linux and Unix handle this situation with the reboot command. Windows has command-line shutdown and reboot commands, but they work the same way as the regular GUI shutdown. They don’t have the no-really-I-mean-it functionality that a true emergency restart or emergency shutdown facility has.
It turns out the functionality exists. But in burying it so you won’t accidentally use it, Microsoft hid it from pretty much everyone.
How to initiate a Windows emergency restart
In Windows, the trick is to hit control-alt-delete but don’t click shutdown or the power icon. Instead, hold down the control key and click the shutdown button. Windows will then prompt you stating you have requested an emergency restart and it will ask you if you are sure. It will also tell you to only do this in case of emergency.
I’ve heard that this feature exists at least back to Windows NT 3.51, from 1995. I don’t have anything that old to test, so I can’t confirm if it was in Windows NT 3.1 and 3.5. I can confirm it was in Windows 10, Windows 7, and XP.
I’ve been hearing people complain for years that Windows needs this feature. By years, I mean since 1997 or 98, when I got promoted into my first sysadmin job and started reading IT-oriented blogs. It turns out the feature those early bloggers were grousing about was already there. But nobody seemed to know about it, because nobody mentioned it.
So now you can impress your Windows sysadmins with your knowledge of the no-really-I-mean-it Windows emergency restart feature. Maybe you’ll even be able to use it to get yourself out of a bind someday.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.
Early Windows would allow an immediate exit. No frills, straight to DOS or would ‘cope’ if you turned the pc off.
This was in stark contrast to Unix/Xenix which, as Linux now, required a shutdown command so the system closed down gracefully.
Then Novell ‘bought Unix’, and changed it so that Univell, their first product could cope with an immediate power off, like Windows…
But at the same time as this Microsoft imposed it’s software controlled exit, like Unix…
This is supported by the sys-rq key on Linux.
I used to use the “shutdown /f” command in the Command Prompt, I always though it was an “emergency” shutdown.
That’s a good question if there’s a difference between using the ctrl key in the GUI and shutdown /f from a command prompt. I’d always heard shutdown /f will close an application (such as an app waiting for a user to click OK) but not a hung service.