How To Shutdown Windows 10 Completely

Information technology's foreign even to type this but when y'all striking the power button on the start card to shut down Windows ten, it's non really shutting downwards. Aye, it goes through the motions and information technology may look like your calculator's been powered off and it sort of does, but it doesn't. Let's swoop into this weirdness and then you tin can properly shut it down.

This is an older Windows 10 quirk, but one worth highlighting every at present and and so in case you forgot that "shut down" isn't really "shut downwards". What you're really doing when yous shut down your computer is putting it into a hybrid state, the "fast startup" feature enabled past default in Windows 10's settings. Every bit Windows Central describes:

With fast startup enabled, choosing to close down your PC might look similar you're completely shutting things down, but in reality, your PC is inbound a mix between a shutdown and hibernation. A hibernation file is indeed used, although it is smaller than usual. Why? You're logged off before the file is created, pregnant your session is not recorded. The speed boost comes from the Windows kernel beingness saved on your hard drive and loaded when booting.

Why should yous shut down your PC?

There'due south zilch wrong with Windows 10'due south fast startup feature. Depending on your system configuration, information technology tin do a good job of getting you dorsum into the operating system nice and fast when you "power up" your PC.

Notwithstanding, there are times when you might want to shut down your system the real way – if you lot're having an odd issue with Windows, for instance. As How-To Geek notes, a standard shut down might not be enough to get Windows to stop freaking out during these fun moments:

We've personally experienced this problem ourselves. When faced with weird system problems that may be acquired by a buggy driver or other low-level software problems, the problem persisted after shutting down our PC and booting it dorsum up.

A quick flim-flam you can try is to only restart your organization, which discards the Windows kernel instead of creating a snapshot for a speedier startup. Merely if you'd prefer to power down your organisation for real, you lot accept a few options:

Consider disabling fast startup

Shut downwards your organization similar you commonly would, pull out your favourite stopwatch app on your smartphone, and time how long it takes for your computer to kick into Windows when you start it support. Write that number down – or just call back information technology.

Now, click on the Start button, type in "power", select the "Ability & slumber settings" pick, and click on "Additional power settings". In the window that appears, click on "Choose what the power buttons do" in the left sidebar, and deselect "Plough on fast startup (recommended)". You lot might take to kickoff click on the "Change settings that are currently unavailable" to uncheck fast startup.

Screenshot: David Murphy

Close downwardly your system once more. Fourth dimension how long it takes your computer to boot into Windows when you start back upwards. If the difference betwixt this number and the last number is farthermost, become turn fast startup back on. If it'south only a few seconds, or an amount of fourth dimension y'all don't feel like yous're even going to discover in everyday use, you can leave fast startup unchecked to ensure that you lot're always (really) shutting off your PC.

Fast startup might too brand no difference whatsoever. When I clocked my times, I got 29 seconds from button-press to Lock screen with "fast startup" enabled… and 27 seconds with it turned off. Â¯_(ãƒ„)_/Â¯

The hybrid approach to managing a hybrid shutdown

Screenshot: David Murphy

If you want to utilise Windows' fast startup, but still want the option to perform a total shutdown whenever you think y'all might need it, in that location are a few tricks you can endeavor.

The easiest method is to simply hold down the shift key before you click the power icon and select "close down" on Windows' Outset Menu, the Ctrl+Alt+Del screen or its Lock screen. This will force your system to actually shut downward your PC, non hybrid-shut-down your PC.

If you want to go fancier, you can also shut down your system (for real) from the Command Prompt: Just type in "shutdown /s /f" and hitting Enter. The /southward flag indicates you desire to shut down your system, and /f means yous desire to force any open applications to close (If you lot add /t and a number, yous can also give yourself that many seconds of a delay before your arrangement powers down.)

You can even make this footling command a desktop shortcut for easier admission. Right-click on your Windows 10 desktop, select New, and and so Shortcut, and enter this for the shortcut's location: shutdown /due south /fÂ (Thanks to Lifehacker reader CmdrKeene for the notation nearly the smaller shortcut!)

Screenshot: David Tater

Screenshot: David Murphy

Afterward that, click Side by side, give your shortcut a fun name (such as "Recycle Bin"), and click Stop. The next fourth dimension y'all desire to turn off your PC, just double-click on your shutdown shortcut. Better yet, elevate it to your toolbar for easier admission (and all the hilarity that comes from accidentally clicking "SHUT Downwards" when yous meant to click File Explorer).

Shutting Down Doesn't Fully Shut Down Windows ten (Just Restarting Does) [How-To Geek]

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