You will need to use the windows program shutdown.exe (which is normally located in C:\Windows\System32\) and its parameters.

The table below is a shortened list of the parameters needed for instant shutdown and/or restart plus the help parameter to display all the parameters defined within your windows system.

This is what the instant shutdown command line would look like:
         C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe /s /t 0

And the instant reboot command line would look like this:
         C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe /r /t 0

As you can see the only difference is the use of “/s” or “/r” parameter

Now that we know what to use, how do we get it onto the desktop?
Easy! By creating a desktop shortcut icon containing the shutdown/restart command line as follows.

1. Right click anywhere on an empty space on your desktop to open a menu where you can find “New”.
2. Hover over “New” and another menu appear, near the top of this is “Shortcut”
3. Select/Click on “Shortcut” to open the Shortcut creation wizard.
4. Enter your command line and parameters
5. Click Next
6. Type a title/name for this shortcut – e.g. “Shutdown”
7. And click Finish

I like to have a pretty self-explanatory icon’s because it’s easier to find than reading the titles – and here is how to do this:

1. Right click on the Shutdown icon, to open a menu
2. Select and click on “Properties” to open the “Shutdown Properties” window
3. It should automatically open in the “Shortcut” tab where you will find – near the bottom – the Change Icon… button.
4. Click the Change Icon… and another window with lots of icons opens.
5. Scroll through these until you find an icon you like.
6. Click on it; followed by clicking the OK button to close that window.
7. Now all you have to do is click the OK button in the “Properties”
   window and that’s it.

One last thing:

You might also want place Shutdown icon on your “Taskbar” and/or your “Start menu”
this action is called “Pin to …” – and here is how to do this:

1. Right click on the Shutdown icon (as before), to open a menu
2. This time you are looking for “Pin to Taskbar” or “Pin to Start Menu” (near the top)
3. Just click either and that’s it.

Note you don’t lose the original shortcut.

To unpin an icon from the taskbar/start menu, just right click on it and click “Unpin this program from Taskbar” or “Unpin from Start Menu” and they are gone; not uninstalled nor deleted because what you unpinned was a shortcut and NOT the actual item.

I was having problems creating “Restore Points” in windows 7.

When I opened “System Protection” everything was greyed out; and all I got was an: “System Restore Error Code 0x81000203”.

Hunting high and low I finally came across this good advice from the following website: https://windowsforum.com/threads/actual-solution-for-system-restore-error-code-0x81000203.184794/

Both “Volume Shadow Copy” and “Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider” must be started and set to automatic. With both of these services active, the System Protection tab will work.

Their link to Microsoft didn’t work but here is a link that works: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-performance/how-to-fix-error-code-0x81000203/0358b3df-a34f-e011-8dfc-68b599b31bf5 This describes how to fix this error for the “Volume Shadow”; but just apply the same for “Microsoft Software Shadow”.

My “Restore Points” are now working. One more suggestion: Don’t forget to click the Configuration button to select the drive, and set the Maximum Disk Space to be used (to something more than zero, depending on how many generations of restore points you want, set it to at least a few GB).

Also just in case, create the first checkpoint yourself.
That’s it, and I am a happy bunny.