In the times that run the use of the Internet has opened many doors until a few years ago, unimaginable. Add to this the good connections that, in general terms, we can use today when working on our Windows computer.
In this way we can play online, store all our private data in the cloud, or interact with the rest of the world through social networks, among many other things. This is something that is extended to both desktop computers and mobile devices. And for many, their Internet connection has become a way of life, either personally or professionally.
Internet increasingly offers us more advanced services
Of course, in addition to the connection as such, other factors come into play here both at the software and hardware level. Together with the equipment for all this that we can use in these moments, the applications and platforms could not be less. Serve as an example the advances experienced in Windows 10 , or in the browsers we use daily. These are the programs, among many others, that allow us to take full advantage of our online connections and services.
Similarly, in different ways, the Internet will allow us to work with our devices remotely, which offers us many advantages. For example, in the case that we have left the house in a hurry and leave the computer running or we need to restart the system remotely, now we can and we will see how to do it.
It is for all this that in these same lines we are going to show you several methods with which you can remotely restart a Windows PC, something that will be very useful. To say that this is something that we can carry out both with internal functions of the operating system itself, or with third-party applications.
Restart a computer remotely with Windows PowerShell
To start we will tell you that without having to use external applications, we can restart a PC through the Windows PowerShell function . Of course, this is a valid method for those computers that are operating within the same local network. Therefore, for this we will use the system command called Shutdown.exe.
As the name implies, its purpose is to shut down or restart the computer, but there are several additional functions to adapt the command to our needs. For all this, the first thing we do is access the PowerShell, for example from the Start menu dialog box, doing a search . Thus, by using the aforementioned shutdown command, we can perform different tasks related to shutdown or restart. These are the parameters that we can use:
- / m / [IP]: marks the device of the specified IP.
- / r: forces the computer to restart completely.
- / hybrid: next to the / s parameter, it performs a quick start shutdown .
- / f: close all open applications .
- / t 00: restart without any delay in seconds.
- / c: allows you to add a message before remote restart.
Knowing this, a clear example of what we could then indicate in the PowerShell, would be the command “shutdown / r / f / m /// N [IP] -t 00”.
Restart remotely using Windows remote desktop
In the case that the first method does not convince us, we can make use of the remote desktop . We refer to what is known as RDP, Microsoft‘s protocol for accessing remote desktops through a local network or the Internet. This is an integrated function in Windows that we can also launch from the Start menu search box. Once we start it, we have to enter the IP of the PC that we want to restart remotely.
Of course, to achieve all this, we will also need the username and password when requested. Once the connection to the remote PC is established, we can restart the computer remotely as if we were in front of it.
Restart the PC with third-party solutions
And finally we will restart a computer remotely, but using an application external to Windows itself. Specifically we refer to the free software called Shutter that you can download from this link . Here we have both an installable and a portable version that allows us to remotely program various events, including the restart we are looking for. We will do all this, once the aforementioned program is launched, through the browser .
To say that Shutter acts as a server that gives us remote access to another PC from any browser. In principle to configure this, we achieve it from Options / Web interface, where we check the Enable box and choose an IP list and enter the port we want to use, with 80 being the most common.
Next we have to set the username and password to save the changes later, so the application will be ready.
Of course, to use all this from outside your local network , we need to make some changes to the router. To do this we open the same page from the browser, usually with the address 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1, and configure the ports, something for which we may need the documentation of the device . This is because in each model this can change. In this way we have to make sure that the IP and port defined in Shutter before are enabled here.
Once the router changes have been saved, we can go to any web browser and send, not only the restart command to the computer , but also many others.