7 Ways To Shut Down Or Restart A Windows 10 PC Or Device

 

1. Shut Down Using The Start Menu

The simplest and most basic method of shutting down Windows 10 is by using the Start Menu, which is the default option in the latest Microsoft operating system. To do this, first open the Start Menu by clicking the Start button in the bottom left corner of the screen.

Then, click or tap Power.

Three options appear: choose Restart to restart your device, Shut down to shut it down completely or Sleep to put it into sleep mode.

If the Start Menu is set to fullscreen mode, it will look a bit different when opened. In this case, click the I/O icon to access shutdown, restart and sleep.

If you're using Windows 10 in tablet mode, the Taskbar will be different, and you won't have a traditional desktop, but you still need to tap the Start button to access the fullscreen Start Menu.

2. Shut Down Using The WinX Menu

You can access the power user menu, by pressing the Windows + X keys on your keyboard.

Here, just point to Shut down or sign out to access shutdown, restart and sleep.

You can also access this menu, by right-clicking on the Start button, or, if you are using a touchscreen, long-press the Start button to open it.

3. Shut Down Using ALT + F4

Whenever you are viewing the Desktop, you can press the ALT + F4 key combination to open the shut down menu.

Here, you can open the drop-down list to choose whether to shut down, restart or put the device to sleep. You can also logout from your user profile or switch to a different one. Select the option you want, and click or tap OK to confirm it.

4. Shut Down Using The "Shutdown" Command

If you like a command line interface, you can use that too. Open a Command Prompt window, type shutdown /s and press Enter to shut down your device.

You can also issue this command from the Run window. Press the Win + R key combination to open it, then type the shutdown /s command and press Enter to shut down your device.

To restart the device, replace shutdown /s with shutdown /r. To learn about all the available parameters for this command simply type shutdown in the Command Prompt.

5. Shut Down From The Lock Screen

You can also shut down your device from the lock screen: you can see this screen before logging in to Windows, or if you sign out or lock your device. Here, press the I/O icon in the bottom right corner to access the usual shut down, restart and sleep options.

6. Shut Down Using "Slidetoshutdown" Command

It is not a very-well known feature of Windows, but you can still use it. Just open the Run window by pressing Win + R, type slidetoshutdown.exe and press enter or click OK.

This will drop in your lock screen image from the top, that will cover half of your screen. Just slide the image to the bottom of your screen with your mouse (or your finger if using a touchscreen) to shut down your computer, or press any key or slide the image upwards to cancel shutdown.

You can also create a shortcut to this application, if you like this method.

7. Shut Down Using The Power Button On The Device

If you're running Windows 10 on a touch device, like a smartphone, or a tablet, there is another, faster way you can shut it down. First, you need to long press your device's power button (the on/off button), which will drop your lock screen, in a way very similar to the slidetoshutdown command.
Now you just need to slide the screen down to shut down the device.