Freeware Shutdown Stopper

In Chapter 12, we briefly discussed the procedures for troubleshooting shutdown problems and performing emergency shutdown (when your system stops responding, when you cannot shutdown normally, or if you simply need to shut down quickly and prevent any current information from being saved). However, situatuations when you want to prevent your system from being shut down are not uncommon either. Consider, for example, a case where a software installation program doesn't give you any options and reboots the system immediately (although most install programs usually ask the user whether it is desirable to reboot now or wait until later).

If this is the case, consider the Shutdown Stopper freeware utility, which stops your PC from shutting down by aborting the shutdown process. Shutdown Stopper runs in the Windows Notification Tray (Fig. 14.18). To use the program, simply run it and shutdowns will be disabled. You can either right-click on the application's icon to bring up a menu with options or left-click and open the main program window. Either way lets you enable or disable shutdowns, exit the program, or turn off shutdown notifications so you won't be told when a shutdown attempt has occurred. Other options, such as running a command when a shutdown attempt occurs are only available from the main window's Setup tab (Fig. 14.19).

Figure 14.18: Shutdown Stopper runs in the Windows Notification Tray

Figure 14.19: The Setup tab of the Shutdown Stopper window

To download this useful little tool, visit http://www.otbsw.com.