We have already seen different ways to shut down or restart Windows. One of them is by pressing the Alt+F4 combination to bring up the Windows Shut down Dialog box. However this is not as convenient as it looks, as if you have lots of programs open on your computer, it takes time. In such cases, Alt+F4 first closes each program separately and we get the following prompt after ensuring every program is closed.
Create a shortcut to open Shut Down Dialog Box (Alt+F4)
In this article, I’ll show you the simple way to bring the shutdown prompt instantaneously, by creating a shortcut to open Windows Shut down Dialog Box – and optionally ‘pinning‘ it to the system tray.
1. Open Notepad and type the following string:
(new ActiveXObject("Shell.Application")).ShutdownWindows();
2. Save this file with any name you like, but provide it in the .js format as mandatory, for example Shutdown.js and pick All files as save as type. Save it to any location but create its shortcut to Desktop.
3. Right-click on the taskbar and move to Toolbars -> New toolbar.
4. In the New Toolbar – Choose a folder window, input the following location for Folder:
%UserProfile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch
Then click on Select Folder and Quick Launch will be added to Windows taskbar.
5. Now go to Desktop and drag the shortcut created in step 1 in Quick Launch bar, until Link appears in the pop-up, and then drop it. It will create a shortcut inside the Quick Launch menu.
6. That’s it. Now the shutdown shortcut is added as a shortcut itself in the Quick Launch menu. At this stage, you can delete the Desktop shortcut used in the previous step. You can rename it simply Shutdown or whatever you like by right-clicking > Rename.
So in case you have to bring power options, just click on Quick Launch bar and pick Shutdown and you’ll get the Alt+F4 menu directly. If you click anywhere on-screen besides this shut-down prompt, it just disappears.
TIP: See this post if Alt + F4 not working on Windows.
