Turn your computer off with one click.

Shutting down your computer should be as easy as flicking off a light switch, but it's not. You gotta click Start, Shut Down, select the option you want, and then click OK. Today's free file, on the other hand, will not only let you shut down with a single click, it'll give you total control over the shutdown process.

Slawdog Smart Shutdown is a nice little utility that sits in your System Tray. When you want to shut down your computer, click its icon once and you'll instantly get a dialog box warning you that your PC will shut down in 10 seconds. Choose No to stop your computer from turning off, click Yes to do it now, or simply walk away and let the timer run out. Your PC will then turn off.

But that's not all. If you right-click the icon (or choose Show Window) you'll get a bunch of additional options. You can reboot, log off, go into standby mode, or disconnect from the Internet.

You can also set the program to perform any of these functions at a specific time -- for example shut down every night at 6 p.m. or log you off after a certain period of inactivity. Plus, Slawdog has a built-in reminder feature so you can write notes to yourself and set them to pop up at various times.

Be sure to look under the "global options" selection for additional shutdown tweaks. Here you can:

  • Remove the 10-second shutdown warning for a quick one-click shutdown
  • Empty the Recycle Bin on shutdown
  • Eject removable media on shutdown
  • Select a sound file to play on shutdown


The Slawdog website claims this program will shut down successfully 99.9 percent of the time on any occasion. Hard to verify, but in our experience it's worked every time.

Download Slawdog Smart Shutdown now