USB Shutdown : Yank USB Pendrive to Shutdown Windows

We recently posted about USBKill which is a Python based script that can shutdown your Linux or Mac computer when you pull the USB pendrive from it. This can be very useful if you have to quickly shutdown the computer without having to go through all the menus and buttons to access the powering off options. But the sad part is that USBKill does not work on Windows. This is why we came up with USB Shutdown for Windows. It is similar to USBKill, but it allows you to specify your own shutdown commands. Just like USBKill, it works in Windows to initiate forced shutdown of PC when you attach or remove a pen drive to one of its USB ports.

We have compiled USB Shutdown in 32-bit version only as this can work even on computers running 64-bit version of Windows. It works on Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 (consumer preview). The program is completely portable and does not require anything extra to be installed. You have to extract the files from the ZIP archive usb-shutdown.zip to a folder of your choice.

USB Shutdown

You should right-click on USBShutdown.exe and choose Run as administrator so that it has admin access to shutdown the PC. Before launching USBShutdown.exe make sure you have attached any USB flash disks or pen drives to your computer that you want to work with. When USB Shutdown is running, it monitors if any USB mass storage media has been inserted or removed in the PC. In the event you remove or attach a USB pen drive, it will run the command specified in the text box.

USB Shutdown

By default the command line executed is shutdown /s /f /t 20 which initiates a forced shutdown of Windows in next 20 seconds. You can change this command to anything you please. You can click on the Default button to restore the default command line. You can click on the Abort Shutdown button to cancel any accidental shutdown (does not work if you have specified /t 0 giving 0 seconds to shutdown the Windows).

USB Shutdown

Conclusion: USB Shutdown does for Windows operating system what USBKill does for Linux or Mac. It can help you quickly shutdown Windows just by attaching or removing a USB pen drive into one of the USB ports.

You can download USB Shutdown for Windows from https://www.trishtech.com/downloads/usb-shutdown.zip.

2 comments

  1. Excuse me, How can I use this tool to detect USB HID device ? Please let me know… I need this tool to do something about the control program, thank you.

  2. This can be very worked if you have to quickly shut down the computer without having to go through all the menus and buttons to access the powring off option. This program I
    Youtube follow and installed. and it very easy to use. It is really important Pendrive security.

Comments are closed.