How to shutdown Windows 8

We end our tour and setup marathon by showing you how to log off and turn off your computer.

Shutdown and logoff options have changed yet again. (Remember the ribbing we Windows users got from Mac users because we had to click Start to stop? It’s going to get only a little better now.)

Here are the log off and shutdown options:

• To make the computer sleep, shut down, or restart—Open the charms by swiping or by pressing Windows Logo+C. Select Settings, Power and then select Sleep, Shut Down, or Restart.

• To log off—Go to the Start screen, click your name in the upper-right corner, and select Sign Out.

• To switch users—Go to the Start screen, click your name in the upper-right corner, and select another user name.

Sleep is a great way to save energy if you’re leaving your computer for more than 10 minutes or so and plan to come back. However, if the computer loses power, Windows will not have a chance to shut down properly, and you could lose data if you hadn’t saved your documents. You can tell Windows that if you leave the computer “asleep” for some time, automatically turn the computer back on, save its memory to disk, and then really power itself off. This is called hibernation. When you turn the computer back on, it’ll take a bit longer to restart, but it’s still usually faster than a cold Windows startup.


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Caution

Always use Shut Down before you unplug your computer.


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To set up automatic hibernation, go to the Start screen and search for sleep. Under Settings, select Change When the Computer Sleeps, Change Advanced Power Settings. Scroll down to Sleep and expand the list to view Hibernate After. Change the time from Never to, say, 120 minutes (2 hours) and then click OK.


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Note

When you shut down Windows 8, it closes all running applications and services, but it actually hibernates the Windows kernel. When you start up again, the kernel loads nearly instantly, speeding up the boot time by several seconds.


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This ends our tour. To close the book, so to speak, go to the Start screen, open the charms, and select Settings, Power and Shut Down. Watch Windows power off. When it’s finished shutting down, press your computer’s power button briefly and see how fast it powers back up.


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Tip

On desktop computers, Hibernate isn’t shown as an option on this Shut Down menu because the automatic hibernate-after-sleep mechanism, called Hybrid Sleep, is enabled by default. If you disable Hybrid Sleep in the Advanced Power Settings control panel, Hibernate will appear as an option on this Shut Down menu. On laptops, Hibernate should appear on the Shut Down menu because Hybrid Sleep is disabled by default.


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How to open command prompt in Windows 8

Option 1. When you are in the Metro UI, start typing "cmd". It will automatically go in to search mode and will search for what you typed (cmd). See the picture below:

To open the RUN dialog, press the Windows key and then press "R". This will open the RUN dialog for you. To open the command prompt from here, type "cmd" and press ENTER.

Enable classic start menu on Windows 8

Navigate to

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer

Chanbe the key a key called "RPEnabled" with the value "1".

 

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