Disabling the Shut Down button on Windows Server 2008

The very first thing I do when building an Amazon EC2 image is too disable the Shut Down button.

Shutting Down an instance has the same effect of terminating the instance, meaning you lose all data not stored on EBS volumes.

Click Start > Run > Type “gpedit.msc” and press enter

Go to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Start Menu and Toolbar

The option you are looking for is “Remove and prevent access to the Shut Down, Restart, Sleep, and Hibernate commands”

Right Click > Properties > Select Enabled > Click Apply > Click OK

Now when you go to the Start Menu you will see this with the only options being Lock and Log Off. Now you can use the AWS Management Console to manage reboots or terminations.