Windows 8 made it more cumbersome for PC users to shut down the PC by increasing the number of clicks it takes using the mouse and keyboard. There are actually a dozen ways to shut down so you can use any method you like. One of them is the classic Shutdown dialog which appears when you press Alt+F4 on the Desktop. It is a good way to shut down as it can do a hybrid shut down and it doesn't show the Metro UI. However the default action in that dialog is no longer changeable from the Taskbar Properties in Windows 8 because of Start Menu settings going away. Let us see how we can change this action.
Tag: shut down
Windows 8 reboots (restarts) instead of shutting down
A number of Winaero readers write to me regularly saying they have various shutdown-related issues with Windows 8 (and now Windows 8.1). The most popular issue is that their PC reboots instead of shutting down. When they click shut down, Windows 8 doesn't shutdown, but instead restarts.
It is hard to tell what is the exact cause of such behavior, because the reason can be different from PC to PC, but in this article we will explore some solutions which can be helpful if you are facing this problem of the computer rebooting instead of doing a shut down.
How to disable or enable Fast Startup in Windows 8.1
Fast Startup is a new feature which is introduced in Windows 8 RTM. It allows your computer to start faster than normal by logging off the user session and then saving a part of system related files and drivers to a hibernation file. When you turn on your PC again, it resumes from hibernate and logs you in again. In other words, the fast startup feature combines the classic shutdown mechanisms with hibernation, so it can be called 'hybrid shutdown'. Hybrid shutdown is enabled by default in Windows 8 and its successor, Windows 8.1. Follow this article to learn how to disable the fast boot feature or enable it back, and why you may want to do so.
