As I said in a previous remote desktop reboot article, it’s worth getting to know the default Microsoft tools because they’re always around when everything else is crashed or broken. Here are two additional methods of rebooting a remote PC that has been accessed via Microsoft’s Remote Desktop client (RDC).

The easiest method I’ve heard of (even easier than my method of using msconfig to force a reboot prompt) is to click on a blank area of the remote machine’s desktop and then press Alt + F4. Assuming you have Admin rights on the remote PC this brings up the “normal” Windows XP/2000 Shut Down/Reboot dialog. …but there’s a catch - the Remote Desktop window to the remote machine has to be in full screen mode or Alt + F4 will just close something on your own PC. …odds are that if you run an extremely high screen resolution (I do) or have a wide-screen monitor (I have that too), then you’ll have a hard time running the RDC in full screen mode.

There is also a “shutdown” command that I wasn’t aware of. Try entering “shutdown -r -f” on the remote PC’s command line (Start button > “Run…” option > enter in the text box & click “OK”) to force-close open programs and reboot. Other parameters are available for user logoff, shut down, and even logging the reson for shutting down into the event log, see them here: in the online Windows XP documentation. Like the other options it only works if you have Admin rights on the remote PC.

Article tagged: Windows, XP, 2003, Pro, Home, remote+desktop, remote, desktop, RDC, RDP, Windows+XP, managment, admin, administration, shutdown, reboot, logoff, command+line

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