Remove Shutdown, Hibernate and Restart Option from Start Menu via GPO

There are organizations where systems are used on sharing basis and if our client wants to restrict the users that no user can shut down the system so that data or unsaved files of other user is not lost.

In this article, we will be using Windows Server 2012 where we will learn how we can create and deploy the group policy for shut down restriction. Log in to the Windows server and open the active directory.

We have an organizational unit “All Users” in which there are users and we will restrict these users to shut down the computers.

Open the Group Policy Management.

Browse the OU where you want to create the group policy as in this case, it is “All Users”.

Right-click on it and select the first option “Create a GPO in this domain and link it here”.

In New, GPO enters the name of group policy.

Press enter and your new GPO is listed under the designated OU.

Right click on the GPO and click on “Edit”.

Group policy management editor is opened. Under “User configuration” expand “Policies” and then click on “Administrative Templates”.

Click on “Start Menu and task” and look for “Remove and prevent access to the shutdown”.

Double-click on it to open the group policy.

Enable the group policy.

Then press “Apply’ and click Ok. Now log in to any of client machine using any of user account where we have applied the group policy.

I have logged in with user one and after the group policy implementation I am getting “Sign out” only.

If some user tries pressing “ALT+F4” that user will get the error this operation has been canceled due to restriction in effect on this computer. Please contact your system administrator.

This is how we can disable shutdown, hibernate and restart options using group policy.