Force Restart Only in XP

[InfiniteNothing]

Hey all you Windows gurus, I've been searching online for a bit and I've only found more people asking the same question.

How can I prevent a user from shutting down their computer through the start>turn off computer>turn off?

I'd like to leave the reboot option intact so the NoLogoff=1 method won't work for me.

[zippyjuan]

Sorry, I can't help you on that but I recently retired my old computer because it would not go to the shutoff if I used the start> turnoff computer> turnoff but would immediately go to reboot- even if I used the manual power off button. It was over six years old (Athlon XP system).

[jstreet]

Hey all you Windows gurus, I've been searching online for a bit and I've only found more people asking the same question.

How can I prevent a user from shutting down their computer through the start>turn off computer>turn off?

I'd like to leave the reboot option intact so the NoLogoff=1 method won't work for me.So you want to leave them a Start Menu ability to click log off, restart, and standby/hibernate -- but not shut down?

That is tricky. I don't know of a straightforward way of doing it.

I would probably use the Group Policy "Remove and prevent access to the Shut Down command," which has the effect of removing all Shut Down options (restart too, etc) from the Start Menu and disabling the Shut Down button on the Ctrl-Alt-Del page.

Then, I'd create shortcuts in the Start Menu to shutdown.exe with the options I wanted to keep. For example, I'd create a shortcut called Restart and point it to
C:\Windows\System32\Shutdown.exe -r -t 0 which would trigger an immediate reboot.

A smart user could still shut down the PC by other means (shutdown.exe itself with the -s flag) but it would at least nix the Start Menu and Ctrl-Alt-Del ways.