Windows XP shutdown 

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First you need to click the Start button, then click the shutdown button. Windows takes you to a dialog where you need to - again - click shutdown ...

... and it's only then that the waiting starts.

What a pain !

Only few people know that Windows XP offers a powerful alternative that does the shutdown job in half the time. There is a power-restart and a power-switch-user as well.

A Windows XP shutdown icon on your desktop
Right-click an empty space on your desktop
Select the option "new shortcut"
Type "shutdown -s -t 0" (Exactly as shown here, but without the quotes. The last character in the command is a zero.)
Click next
Type a name for the shortcut (e.g. Fast shutdown) and click finish
Now you have a new icon on your desktop. Let's customize it some more.

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  Right-click the new icon and select properties.
  
  
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  In the dialog box that opens up, click change icon.
  
  
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  You may see a warning message that shutdown.exe contains no icons, just click ok if you see this
  
  
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  Choose a new icon
  
  
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  You are now ready to test your new Windows XP shutdown button.
  
  
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  Make sure to close all applications and double-click your new icon to shutdown your computer.

Once the shutdown mechanism is started, there is only one way to stop your machine from going down. That's what the next part is all about.

An icon to stop the shutdown mechanism
Suppose that you double-click the power Windows XP shutdown icon and just a split second later you realize that there was one more thing you wanted to do before shutting down.

To create an anti-shutdown icon :

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  Right-click an empty space on your desktop
  
  
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  Select the option "new shortcut"
  
  
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  Type "shutdown -a" (Exactly as shown here, but without the quotes.)
  
  
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  Click next
  
  
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  Type a name for the shortcut (e.g. Anti shutdown) and click finish
  
  
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  You know now how to choose a better looking icon.

An icon to restart your computer fast
Create a new icon like the previous ones, but type "shutdown -r -t 0" in the "location of the item" box.

An icon to switch user fast
If you have enabled the Windows XP feature "Fast User Switching", you can create an additional icon to switch user FAST.

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  Right-click an empty space on your desktop
  
  
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  Select the option "new shortcut"
  
  
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  Type "rundll32.exe user32.dll LockWorkStation" (Exactly as shown here, but without the quotes. LockWorkStation is case-sensitive.)
  
  
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  Click next
  
  
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  Type a name for the shortcut (e.g. Switch User Fast) and click finish
  
  
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  This icon is so fast and handy and completely safe that I would recommend dragging it to your Quick Launch bar.

Click here if you don't know how to work with the Quick Launch toolbar. (opens a new window)

Experiment
If you feel confident enough to try other possibilities of the shutdown command, try this :

Click your start button, then click "run", type "cmd" (without the quotes) and click ok
In the command window, type shutdown /help and hit the enter key

Amongst the list of shutdown options, you will even find shutdown parameters to shutdown or restart remote computers. Neat.