Creating an Abort Shutdown Button for Windows 8/Windows 8.1

As a Windows user, you might have faced the instances where you have accidentally initialized the Windows shutdown process, and immediately after initializing you have noticed that you have missed something, and you still want the Windows to remain open. In such situations, you have no option other than waiting for Windows to shut down properly before you power it back on.

Considering the above scenarios, in this tutorial, you will learn how to create an About Shutdown button which, when double-clicked, will abort the shutdown process instantaneously, hence leaving the Windows running.

Since the creation process of the above button does not require any elevated privileges (because even the standard, i.e. non-administrator, users can also shut down the computer), even if you are a standard (non-administrator) user on your Windows 8/Windows 8.1, you can still create the About Shutdown button and can use it seamlessly.

Here is how the About Shutdown button can be created:

    ■Log on to the Windows 8/Windows 8.1 computer using your account credentials (username and password).
    ■From the Start screen, click the Desktop tile.
    ■On the desktop window, right-click anywhere.
    ■From the context menu that appears, go to New, and from the submenu, click Shortcut.
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    ■On the opened Create Shortcut wizard, in the Type the location of the item field in the first window, type %windir%\system32\shutdown.exe –a.
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    ■Click Next to continue.
    ■On the next window, in the Type a name for this shortcut field, type Abort Shutdown. (You can type any other name if you want).
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    ■Once done, click Finish to finalize the process.
    ■Once the shortcut is created on the desktop, you can right-click the icon, and click Properties from the context menu.

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10. On the opened shortcut’s properties box, ensure that you are on the Shortcut tab.
11. Click the Change Icon button from the bottom.
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12. From the icons’ list in the Change Icon box, click to select any desired icon for the Abort Shutdown button that you have just created. Alternatively you can also click the Browse button, and locate and select any other icon file of your choice.
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13. Once done, click OK to save the changes.
14. You can now check functioning of the button by first initializing the Windows shutdown process, and then by immediately double-clicking the Abort Shutdown button that you have created.