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Shutting down Windows on ACPI systems, WITHOUT having the computer turn off by itself

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Andrew T.

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(Posted in Off-Topic since this covers a broad swath of technology from 1995 to the present day.)

If you shut down Windows 95 or later on a computer with a physical power switch, you're presented with a "Safe to turn off" screen where you're free to switch the power off yourself (or reboot the system, if you're so inclined).

Ever since soft-touch power switches came into vogue with the ATX and ACPI standards of the mid '90s, however, shutting down Windows has resulted in the system turning off altogether. Maybe I'm alone in this regard, but I've never liked this behaviour from the moment I first saw it in action 21 years ago. I find it insulting and annoying to be deprived of the ability to switch off my own computer, and I also resent being deprived of the ability to reboot the computer from the shutdown screen. For these reasons, I've steadily looked for ways to disable this "feature."

The usual sure-fire way to disable automatic power-off in Windows 9x is to turn off ACPI or power management in CMOS. Not all computers have the ability to disable ACPI in CMOS, however, and it seems like overkill to disable all power-management features simply to eliminate one instance of unwanted behaviour. Is there any other way? :confused:

NT OSes are another can of worms...and an order of magnitude more frustrating. If I recall correctly, the only way to prevent Windows 2000 from powering off on shutdown is to reinstall it, hit F5 at a non-obvious point of the setup procedure, and change the computer type from "ACPI-PC" to "Standard-PC." Disabling power management in CMOS (or changing the PC type after installation) isn't enough to keep Win2k in line; Microsoft's developers must have thought that no one capable of having their system power off by itself would want their system to not do so. And is even this begrudging workaround present in XP, 7, or subsequent versions? :confused: I don't know.

Any further suggestions, workarounds, or ideas?
 
Andrew T. said:
Ever since soft-touch power switches came into vogue with the ATX and ACPI standards of the mid '90s, however, shutting down Windows has resulted in the system turning off altogether. Maybe I'm alone in this regard, but I've never liked this behaviour from the moment I first saw it in action 21 years ago. I find it insulting and annoying to be deprived of the ability to switch off my own computer..."
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Just out of curiosity, where could you go; what could you do from that dead end you're left at when Windows shuts down but doesn't turn off the computer and there's no prompt of any sort whatsoever? It seems like power off or reset are the only two viable options at that point.


Andrew T. said:
...and I also resent being deprived of the ability to reboot the computer from the shutdown screen.
Click to expand...
'Restart' is always one of the options option on my shutdown screens.
 
I'm not sure that I follow your reasoning, but don't almost all OSes using ACPI or, in some cases, APM, give you the option to power-off or restart?

Whatever, it's easy enough to bypass it with hardware--just take the green wire on the ATX connector (opposite pin 4) and remove it from the connector, bring it out to a latching pushbutton or on-off switch and control power the manual way. Alternatively, ground that wire permanently and manage your power using a switch in the AC line.

Early ACPI was very buggy--on at least one of my P3 era systems that claims to implement it, 98 will power down using APM (still supported there) but XP will go to the "It's safe to power off your system" screen.
 
I think you are confusing ACPI with AHCI.The latter refers to how the system basically communicates with SATA HD's and RAID setups and is usually determined at the time of installation. I don't share your angst concerning exiting windows, but each to their own. If you are running W95/98 or ME you and enter 'command' on the Run line, that will take you to a DOS prompt, but you have probably tried that and it's not what you want. Also, one can start Windows form the DOS prompt by typing 'Win' if you modify the W95/98/ME 'MSDOS.SYS' file by changing 'BOOTGUI=1' to 'BOOTGUI=0'.
 
Stone said:
Just out of curiosity, where could you go; what could you do from that dead end you're left at when Windows shuts down but doesn't turn off the computer and there's no prompt of any sort whatsoever? It seems like power off or reset are the only two viable options at that point.
Click to expand...

Two options is better than none. It's also possible to configure Windows 95 to shut down to the DOS prompt like earlier versions, giving you the abilities to power off, reboot, start a different application, or return to the GUI without rebooting.

Chuck(G) said:
I'm not sure that I follow your reasoning, but don't almost all OSes using ACPI or, in some cases, APM, give you the option to power-off or restart?
Click to expand...

Of course they do! I just don't like the idea of pressing Start > Shut Down and not having the ability to change my mind at the last second...or not having the pedantic satisfaction of touching the power switch.

Chuck(G) said:
Whatever, it's easy enough to bypass it with hardware--just take the green wire on the ATX connector (opposite pin 4) and remove it from the connector, bring it out to a latching pushbutton or on-off switch and control power the manual way. Alternatively, ground that wire permanently and manage your power using a switch in the AC line.

Early ACPI was very buggy--on at least one of my P3 era systems that claims to implement it, 98 will power down using APM (still supported there) but XP will go to the "It's safe to power off your system" screen.
Click to expand...

Thank you! I was hoping that there might be a less-intensive software-based solution, but I'll take any ideas I can get.
 
Stone said:
Just out of curiosity, where could you go; what could you do from that dead end you're left at when Windows shuts down but doesn't turn off the computer and there's no prompt of any sort whatsoever? It seems like power off or reset are the only two viable options at that point.
Click to expand...
This is exactly what I'm wondering. It's one thing on, say, a large Sun workstation where just getting past the POST takes long enough that you may want the option to drop back to OpenBoot and make some changes before rebooting, but I can't fathom what the intended purpose would be on a PC.
 
I experimented with Windows 2000 (RTM version) in a VM and was successfully able to change the computer/HAL type to a non-ACPI version (and thus disable software power-off) both by using the Device Manager and by a more advanced/manual approach involving copying the desired replacement HAL to the system32 folder and adding a boot.ini entry to use it. With the Device Manager, you have to select the option to show all applicable drivers instead of just those Windows deems "compatible" to see the non-ACPI HALs. The manual method is probably better, however, as it enables you to set up multiple boot options for both your original and the new HAL type, providing a way back into your system in case the new HAL doesn't work correctly. In either case you have to go into Device Manager after the new HAL is installed and uninstall an extraneous entry left over under the "Computer" category. If the system still automatically powers off, check to see if Advanced Power Management is enabled in the power settings in the Control Panel.

I don't see much of a real advantage to disabling software power-off with 2000, however, unless you just like seeing the additional screen before shutting the computer off, as there's no apparent way to reboot from the "It's now safe to turn off you computer" screen (Ctrl+Alt+Del does nothing), so you'd still have to reach for the power switch in that case. And you lose the ability to utilize other useful APM/ACPI features (suspend, battery status reporting on laptops, and in the case of Windows 9x, proper CPU idling without third-party software).

Things are probably similar with XP. Vista and later drop the non-ACPI HALs so you're probably out of luck with those.

Windows NT 4.0 (and earlier) doesn't even support software power-off or other power management features (apart from sending HLT instructions to the processor when idle) on its own... and its "It's now safe to turn off your computer" dialog is a real dialog with a convenient "Restart" button. Power management support requires third party software such as SystemSoft PowerProfiler or Softex/Phoenix APM. Note that even with an APM solution installed you can disable software power-off via a registry entry and still retain the other APM functionality.

Not to mention its setup gives you a chance to change the auto-detected computer/HAL type (and other things) without having to use any hidden hotkeys, and allows you some customizability in what accessories/less-than-essential things are to be installed instead of forcibly installing everything. (To be fair, it doesn't tell you, unlike the 2000 setup, that you can hit F6 at the beginning when the blue text-mode setup screen first appears to load a third-party storage driver from a floppy before the kernel starts.)
 
Andrew T. said:
(Posted in Off-Topic since this covers a broad swath of technology from 1995 to the present day.)
Click to expand...
Actually from 1983 to the present day -- just like modern PCs, the Apple Lisa also has a "soft" power button that shuts down the operating system and then automatically switches itself off when you push it.

lisaos3shutdown.jpg
 
NirCmd can do what you want and has quite a few other options as well:


exitwin [shutdown type] {additional option}

This command terminates the current session of Windows. The [shutdown type] parameter can be one of the following values:
  • logoff: Shut down all running processes, log off the current user, and display the log on dialog to allow another user to log into the system.
  • reboot: Shut down the entire system, and then reboot.
  • poweroff: Shut down the entire system, and then turn off the power. (Only for systems that support this feature !)
  • shutdown: Simply shut down the entire system, without reboot and without turning the power off.
You can also use one of the following additional options:
  • force: Forces all applications to terminate immediately. Using this option can caused the current running application to lose data. Use it only in extreme cases !
  • forceifhung: Forces applications to terminate if they are not responding. This option is only available in Windows 2000/XP.

Examples:
exitwin reboot
exitwin poweroff force
exitwin logoff forceifhung

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html

I currently use this same utility to switch between two computers which are sharing one monitor. Instead of using the button on the monitor I simply run a batch file on either computer to get the monitor to display the other one's output.
 
I actually remember my first ATX system, a Gateway 166MHz tower. I remember how it had sleep mode and the ability to turn off and on at scheduled times and shutdown automatically when you shutdown the system. I loved that feature because it was so automatic. I have always been a fan of things controlled by software instead of hardware
 
No, I do not fly. I cannot afford to do so, and I do not trust the principles of physics that lift the plane into the air to be valid science.
The seats are too narrow and close together, i flew to my sisters wedding but I will not fly again.
 
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