In today’s fast moving world, every little bit of time we save helps. Time is a resource that once spent, can never be replenished. So, if you’d like to step away from your computer a little faster, this registry tweak can help.
You may have noticed that when you shut down, you get a notice that it is now safe to power off your computer instead of the system automatically powering all the way down. This registry tweak for Windows XP will bypass that notice and power off your PC at shutdown.
Changes to the registry are irreversible without a backup, so you should always create a backup prior to making any changes to the registry. This provides you with a fallback in case something unwanted happens.
To power down the computer after shutdown, you need to:
- Click Start and go to Run. Enter regedit.
- Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE found on the left side of your registry editor. Expand the folder by clicking on the little cross at the left side of the folder.
- Next, go to SOFTWARE. Expand this folder and proceed to Microsoft.
- Expand Microsoft and go to Windows NT.
- After expanding Windows NT, go to CurrentVersion and expand.
- Go to Winlogon.
- Now, look at the right hand pane of your registry editor. Check and see if PowerdownAfterShutdown is listed there. If the value is there, go on to step eight. If PowerdownAfterShutdown is not there, create the value using the steps listed below.
- Right click on the right hand pane of the box.
- Select New and then select DWORD.
- Rename the new DWORD PowerdownAfterShutdown. You can also right click on the new DWORD value you have just created and select Rename.
- Double click on PowerdownAfterShutdown. A small box will appear.
- Enter 1 if you want to enable power down after shutdown. Enter 0 if you want to disable power down after shutdown instead.
- Exit the registry and reboot.