How to Shut Down the Windows 8 PC Easily

If you have read the various reviews of Windows 8, you will know that the Start button has been removed and the Windows Start screen has replaced it instead. Now when you’ve worked on your new Windows 8 PC and are ready to shut it down, one of the first things you’ll do is head for the bottom left corner towards the Start button to enable the Shut down option. But, with the removal of the Start button, you might get stumped when it comes to shutting down the Windows 8 PC. In this tutorial I’ll show you how to shut down the Windows 8 PC easily.

Note: This tutorial is performed on a Windows 8 Customer Preview version.

How to Shut Down the Windows 8 PC Easily

With earlier Windows PCs Shut down was easy as the option was directly available on the Home screen. But in Windows 8, its not visible on the Start screen, but rather hidden in the Charms bar! Hiding the Shut Down button within the Charms bar may be acceptable for a Touch PC, but on a normal desktop PC, it’s terribly annoying. Here’s how you can shut down the Windows 8 PC on a non touch PC.

1. Hover the mouse pointer over the top-right corner of the screen to activate the Charms bar. Click Settings.

2. In the Settings Pane, click Power and then choose Shut Down.

Now, shutting down a PC is something you do everyday, sometimes more than once. In such situations getting to the power button every time is a complete waste of time. You can add a shortcut to the Start screen to simplify the shut down process. Here’s how you add a shortcut to shut down the Windows 8 PC.

How to Create a Shortcut to Shut Down the Windows 8 PC

1. Navigate to the desktop. If you are on the Start screen, click the Desktop tile on the Metro UI or press the Windows logo key on the keyboard.

2. Right-click the Desktop and choose New->Shortcut.

3. In the Create Shortcut dialog box, in the Type the location of the item text box, type the Shutdown command shutdown.exe -s -t 00 and click Next.

4. In the next screen, enter a shortcut name and then click Finish.

5. The Shutdown shortcut will be displayed on the desktop. Now you can pin the Shutdown command to the Start screen. To do that right-click the Shutdown shortcut and choose Pin to Start.

The Shut Down option is now pinned to the Start screen and all you now need to do to shut down your PC is hit the Shut down tile!

One hopes that when the final version of Windows 8 is released, there is an Shut down tile readily available on the Start screen.

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