How to Shut Down Windows 8

Although it may seem a little silly to have an article which explains how to shut down your PC, Windows 8 has dramatically changed the shutdown/restart process and it will be unfamiliar to anyone new to the OS.

The easiest way to Shut Down (or Restart/Sleep) your computer is to move your mouse cursor to the bottom right corner of the screen to fire up the charms bar. From here, you can click the Settings button:

​
This will launch another sidebar from which you can select Power then click Shutdown:

​
Other Methods:

• If you’re at the desktop (Windows Key + D), you can press ALT + F4 to bring up the shutdown options box.
• If you’ve at the login screen, there should be a clickable power symbol in the bottom right corner.
• You can also create a shortcut on your desktop to shutdown (“C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe -s -t 00”) or restart (“C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe -r -t 00”) your PC.