Shutdown or Restart Windows 10 Using Cortana with your Voice

Shutting down your computer is as simple as pressing a switch or using the traditional way of using your mouse for it. Wanna take it to the next level? What if you can just interact with your computer and even tell it to shut down itself or restart? Cortana makes it possible if you are a Windows 10 user. Just tell your Cortana to shut down or restart, and it will do it for you. Excited to know how? Well, make sure that you have an active microphone connected to your PC so that Cortana can listen to you (most of the laptops will have it in-built.)

How to Shutdown or Restart Windows 10 Using Cortana

1. Open the Run command box by pressing Win+R keys together.
2. Type %appdata% in the run box and press Enter. It will open a file explorer window.
3. Navigate to Microsoft > Windows > Start Menu > Programs folder.
4. Right click on an empty space in the folder and create a new shortcut using the context menu New > Shortcut.
5. This will open the Create Shortcut window where you can put the location of the shortcut as “shutdown.exe -s -t 15“.
6. Click Next.
7. Name the shortcut as “Shut Down“.
8. Click on Finish button.
9. Now, do the same for the restart as well. Right click on an empty space, New > Shortcut in the context menu, put the location as “restart.exe -r -t 15” and name it “Restart“.
   Note that the “-t 15” is the time that will be taken to shut down or restart your PC. So, you may change the number as per your requirements.
10. Open Cortana from your start menu or say “Hey Cortana” which will open Cortana on your Windows 10 PC.
11. Now say, “Open Shutdown” or “Open Restart”.
12. That’s it, if you followed all of the above steps correctly, your PC will now either shut down or restart based on what you have instructed Cortana to do.

So, from now on, whenever you want to restart or shut down your Windows 10, just say “Open Shutdown” or “Open Restart” and Cortana will do it for you. Be sure to repeat saying the words if it doesn’t work in a single go. Even if you did everything correctly but the Cortana didn’t understand what you were saying, it won’t work. So, make sure that you train Cortana to understand your voice so that the accuracy of it will be better. So, have a productive control over your PC using Cortana voice commands.