Windows 8 How-To: Shutdown

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Let me spill out a bit of rant first. Because of the missing Start Menu in Windows 8 Consumer Preview, a lot of people are whining about how difficult and inconvenient it is to a simple task like shutdown comparing to all previous Windows. But why do we need to worry a lot about shutting down a machine while we are already in 2010’s? And why do we need to shut down a machine that is designed touch-first for mobile use every day or two? If you own a smartphone or tablet how often you actually physically shut it down and restart from scratch?

Let’s give our computers a bit of respect, shall we? We only need to shut them down completely when there is something going really wrong. I had one time running my Windows 7 machine non-stop for over 60 days.

And when something is going  really wrong, here are 4 ways that you can use.

1. From the Charm Bar

To bring up a Charm bar, swipe in from right board on a touch device or press Win+I (that’s letter “i”) on your keyboard. And click Power icon and Shut down command.

image thumb18 - Windows 8 How-To: Shutdown

2. From Ctrl + Alt + Del

Yes, the traditional way of pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del still works on a device that has a physical keyboard. Just look for a power icon at the bottom right corner.

3. From Win + R

Aka, from a Dos command Shutdown.

Press Win+R from a physical keyboard, and type in the following command

shutdown /s – to shutdown

shutdown /r – to restart, and

shutdown /s /full – to fully shutdown, though I haven’t noticed any difference from a normal shutdown

4. How about just pressing that Power button

Definitely. The power button is configured by default to shut down a computer on a desktop and to put it in sleep on a tablet. So yes, why not just simply pressing it when really needed?

Pressing and hold the power button for a few more seconds will dirtily shut your Windows 8 machine down completely, just like all previous Windows systems.

Obviously, the option #4 is the easiest way of shutting down a going wrong machine. But if none of these 4 options suit your needs, there are other customize ways that manually put a shutdown option back to a convenient place for you to use. For example, here is one that looks pretty neat.

1 COMMENT

  1. [quote]But why do we need to worry a lot about shutting down a machine while we are already in 2010’s? [/quote]

    For a home desktop computer….the most obvious reason….unattended power surges from nearby lightning strikes.

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