Cortana is Microsoft’s personal assistant for Windows. The personal assistant has the ability to set alarms, take notes, set reminders, and do web searches. Cortana was promised to do more – shutdown, restart, hibernate and sleep, but unfortunately, Windows users have not had this feature, even with the latest update. This is probably as a result of a security concern which may allow attackers to execute the said commands remotely.
In this article, we’ll show you a trick to enable Cortana to perform shutdown or restart commands. This is basically a set of shortcuts with the corresponding commands set to be triggered by Cortana.
Shutting Down with Cortana
- Press the Windows key + E to open Windows Explorer
- Click in the location bar, paste the following location and hit Enter.
%appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs
- In the programs folder, right-click and select New > Shortcut.
- In the Create Shortcut wizard, type the paste the following command in the Type the location of the item: Click Next to continue.
shutdown.exe -s -t 00
- In the next field, provide the name of the voice command you want to use with Cortana. You can use Shutdown or Turn off PC.
- Click Finish to complete.
- If you’ve enabled the “Hey, Cortana” feature, you can say “Hey, Cortana: Open Shutdown” to turn off your computer.
Restarting with Cortana
- Press the Windows key + E to open Windows Explorer
- Click in the location bar, paste the following location and hit Enter.
%appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs
- In the programs folder, right-click and select New > Shortcut.
- In the Create Shortcut wizard, type the paste the following command in the Type the location of the item: Click Next to continue.
shutdown.exe -r -t 00
- In the next field, provide the name of the voice command you want to use with Cortana. You can use Restart.
- Click Finish to complete.
- If you’ve enabled the “Hey, Cortana” feature, you can say “Hey, Cortana: Open Restart” to restart your computer.
Hibernating with Cortana
- Press the Windows key + E to open Windows Explorer
- Click in the location bar, paste the following location and hit Enter.
%appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs
- In the programs folder, right-click and select New > Shortcut.
- In the Create Shortcut wizard, type the paste the following command in the Type the location of the item: Click Next to continue.
shutdown.exe -h
- In the next field, provide the name of the voice command you want to use with Cortana. You can use Hibernate or Deep Sleep.
- Click Finish to complete.
- If you’ve enabled the “Hey, Cortana” feature, you can say “Hey, Cortana: Open Hibernate” or say “Hey, Cortana: Open Deep Sleep” to hibernate your computer.
Signing Out with Cortana
- Press the Windows key + E to open Windows Explorer
- Click in the location bar, paste the following location and hit Enter.
%appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs
- In the programs folder, right-click and select New > Shortcut.
- In the Create Shortcut wizard, type the paste the following command in the Type the location of the item: Click Next to continue.
shutdown.exe -l
- In the next field, provide the name of the voice command you want to use with Cortana. You can use Sign Out or Lock.
- Click Finish to complete.
- If you’ve enabled the “Hey, Cortana” feature, you can say “Hey, Cortana: Open Lock” or say “Hey, Cortana: Open Sign Out” to sign out from your computer.
