Now if you double-click the shutdown shortcut on your desktop, Terminal will open, prompting you to enter your user password. Once entered, the timer will begin.

Dale Smith is a former Associate Writer on the How-To team at CNET. PowerToys, Microsoft's playful name for a series of free Windows add-ons first developed for Windows 95, gives users greater ...

The collaborative DIY web site Instructables has a neat trick for adding a shutdown shortcut to your Windows desktop complete with the shutdown icon (or anywhere else, for that matter).