Shutting Down

What should you do when yous're finished using your computer for the moment?

Millions of people close their PCs off, only they shouldn't; information technology's a jumbo waste of time. When y'all shut down, you have to expect for all your programs to close—and and so the next morning, you have to reopen everything, reposition your windows, and get everything back the manner y'all had it.

You shouldn't merely leave your computer on all the time, either. That's a massive waste of electricity, a security risk, and a black marking for the environment.

What y'all should do is put your machine to sleep. Ordinarily, you exercise that by pressing the physical power push, and that'southward that. If it's a laptop, just close the lid.

The Sleep/Close Down/Restart Commands

If you really want to do the sleeping or shutting downwards thing using the onscreen commands, you'll accept to learn their new locations.

For years, Microsoft was ridiculed for a peculiarity of the Windows design: To shut down your PC, you had to click a button called Showtime .

Not anymore. The "Close downward" command is now available in two places: in the Charms bar (TileWorld simply), and in the secret menu (TileWorld and desktop).

  • TileWorld . The "Shut downwards" control is in the Charms bar. You can see the official procedure in Effigy 1-9.

    Tip

    If y'all have a keyboard, you lot can salve yourself some steps. Press +I to open up the Settings panel of the Charms bar; then click Power then "Shut downward."

  • TileWorld and desktop . If you right-click the button, you get a secret menu of useful commands (The Start Button)—and in Windows 8.1, 1 of them is "Shut down or sign out." (In TileWorld, the push appears when y'all swipe in from the left edge, or when y'all betoken to the lower-left corner with the mouse.)

To shut down your computer, open the Charms bar (left). (Swipe inward from the right side, or press +C.) Click Settings.Right: On the Settings panel, select Power, and then

Figure 1-nine. To shut down your computer, open up the Charms bar (left). (Swipe inward from the right side, or printing +C.) Click Settings. Right: On the Settings panel, select Power, and then "Shut down."

As shown in Effigy 1-9, shutting down is merely one of the options for finishing your work session. Hither are your others.

Sleep

In the olden days, Windows offered a control called Standby. This special state of PC consciousness reduced the amount of electricity the computer used, putting it in suspended animation until you lot used the mouse or keyboard to begin working over again. Whatever programs or documents you were working on remained in memory.

When using a laptop on battery power, Standby was a real boon. When the flight attendant handed over your microwaved chicken teriyaki, you could have a break without closing all your programs or shutting down the computer.

Unfortunately, there were ii large problems with Standby, peculiarly for laptops. First, the PC still drew a trickle of ability this way. If you didn't employ your laptop for a few days, the bombardment would silently go dead—and everything you had open and unsaved would be lost forever. Second, drivers or programs sometimes interfered with Standby, so your laptop remained on even though it was closed inside your carrying case. Your plane would country on the opposite coast, you'd pull out the laptop for the big meeting, and you'd discover that (a) the matter was roasting hot, and (b) the bombardment was expressionless.

The command is now chosen Sleep, and it doesn't present those problems anymore. Start, drivers and applications are no longer allowed to interrupt the Sleep process. No more Hot Laptop Syndrome.

2d, the instant y'all put the computer to sleep, Windows quietly transfers a copy of everything in memory into an invisible file on the hard bulldoze. Merely it still keeps everything alive in memory—the battery provides a tiny trickle of ability—in instance you return to the laptop (or desktop) and want to dive back into work.

If y'all do return soon, the next startup is lightning-fast. Everything reappears on the screen faster than y'all can say, "Redmond, Washington."

If you don't render shortly, then Windows eventually cuts ability, abandoning what it had memorized in RAM. (You control when this happens using the avant-garde power programme settings described on Recovery.) At present your figurer is using no power at all; information technology's in hibernate manner.

Fortunately, Windows notwithstanding has the difficult drive copy of your work environment. So now when you tap a key to wake the reckoner, y'all may have to wait thirty seconds or so—not as fast as 2 seconds, just certainly better than the five minutes information technology would take to start up, reopen all your programs, reposition your certificate windows, and then on.

The bottom line: When yous're washed working for the moment—or for the day—put your calculator to sleep instead of shutting it down. You save power, you save time, and you don't take chances any data loss.

You tin can send a laptop to sleep only past closing the chapeau. On any kind of reckoner, you tin can trigger Sleep by clicking Slumber in the Charms bar (Figure 1-ix), or by pushing the PC's power push, if you lot've set it upwardly that fashion.

Restart

This command quits all open programs and then quits and restarts Windows once more automatically. The computer doesn't really turn off. (You might do this to "refresh" your calculator when you find that it'southward responding sluggishly, for example.)

Shut down

This is what near people would call "actually, really off." When you shut downwards your PC, Windows quits all open up programs, offers y'all the opportunity to salvage whatever unsaved documents, exits Windows, and turns off the calculator.

In Windows 8, starting up later a full shutdown is a lot faster than before, thank you to something Microsoft calls Hybrid Boot. (Information technology combines elements of Hibernation way with the full shutdown mode, in an endeavour to save you time the next time you lot start up.)

However, there's well-nigh no reason to shut down your PC anymore. Sleep is almost always better all the way around.

The only exceptions have to do with hardware installation. Anytime you accept to open up the PC to make a change (installing retentivity, hard drives, or audio or video cards), or to connect something external that doesn't just utilize a USB or FireWire (1394) port, you should shut the matter downward offset.

Tip

If you're a keyboardy sort of person, you might prefer this faster route to close down: Printing Ctrl+Alt+Delete to summon the Lock/Switch User screen. Click the button in the lower correct to shut down.

The Account Menu

See your business relationship name and moving picture in the upper-right corner of the Start screen (Effigy 1-x)?

That's not just helpful information. The picture show is also a pop-up menu. And its commands all accept to do with switching from one account to some other. (In Windows' accounts feature, each person who uses this PC gets to see her ain desktop picture, email account, files, so on. See Chapter 24.)

Your account icon isn't just an icon; it's also a pop-up menu. Click it to see the

Figure ane-10. Your account icon isn't just an icon; it's as well a pop-up card. Click information technology to see the "Sign out" and "Lock" commands, as well as the names of other business relationship holders for fast switching.

These commands used to be part of the standard Sleep/Restart/Shut Downwards menu, just they've moved to a new address. Here'south what they practice.

Tip

Some keystrokes from previous Windows versions are still around. For example, you can still press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to summon the three commands described here: "Lock," "Switch user," and "Sign out"—plus a bonus link for the Task Manager (When Programs Die: The Task Manager).

Sign out

When you lot choose "Sign out," Windows closes all your open up programs and documents (giving you lot an opportunity to salve whatsoever unsaved documents first). It then presents a new Login screen so that somebody else can log in.

Whatever you had running remains open up behind the scenes. When you log in again, you'll detect all your open up programs and documents exactly as y'all left them.

Switch user

What if somebody just wants to log into the computer with her own name and password—to practice a quick calendar or email check, for example?

Yep, the "Sign out" command works fine. But the interloper tin relieve a few steps past simply choosing her own account name from the popular-upward menu that is your business relationship icon. She'll be asked for her countersign, of class.

Lock

This control takes you dorsum to the Lock screen described at the beginning of this chapter. In essence, information technology throws a canvass of inch-thick steel over everything you were doing, hiding your screen from view. This is an ideal style to protect your PC from nosy people who happen to wander past your desk-bound while you're abroad getting coffee or lunch.

Three Triggers for Sleep/Close Down—and How to Change Them

Y'all now know how to trigger the "Shut down" command using the Charms bar. But there are even faster means.

If you have a laptop, just close the lid. If you lot accept a desktop PC, just printing its ability button ( ).

In all these cases, though—menu, hat, power button— y'all can decide whether the computer shuts down, goes to slumber, hibernates, or but ignores yous.

To find the manufactory setting that controls what happens when you close the lid or striking the ability button, open the Start screen and type power .

In the search results, the two relevant options are "Modify what closing the lid does" and "Alter what the ability buttons practise."

For each of these options, you can choose "Sleep," "Do nothing," "Hibernate," or "Shut down." And you can fix different behaviors for when the car is plugged in and when it's running on battery power.

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