So the solution a mash-up Apache and psshutdown now available from Microsoft. My apache was installed through cygwin so I have all the shell powers available for my cgi scripts.
Just make some cgi scripts and off we go.

You will need to make a dummy script to accept the licence using the /accepteula switch which needs to be run once or the scripts will just all fail.

I added the sysinternals tools to my system environment path so they will get picked up without addng the path.

Then the following script is dropped into

/srv/www/cgi-bin/shutdown

#!/bin/sh

# disable filename globbing
set -f

echo “Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1″
echo
echo Force shutdown of computer
echo

psshutdown -kf

I also set up a static IP address for the laptop.

Now I just put a bookmark in my browser http://192.168.1.199/cgi-bin/shutdown and clicking on this shuts that laptop down without any arguments.

I have Wi-Fi capable mobile phone so put the bookmark in there and I can easily shut it down from there too, which is really handy as I’m not always in front of a computer screen.