Shutting Down

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

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

You shouldn't just leave your estimator on all the time, either. That's a massive waste product of electricity, a security chance, and a blackness marking for the surround.

What you should exercise is put your machine to sleep. Usually, you do that by pressing the concrete power push button, and that'south that. If it'south a laptop, just shut the lid.

The Sleep/Close Down/Restart Commands

If you really want to practice the sleeping or shutting down affair using the onscreen commands, you'll have to learn their new locations.

For years, Microsoft was ridiculed for a peculiarity of the Windows design: To shut downward your PC, you had to click a button chosen Starting time .

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

  • TileWorld . The "Shut down" command is in the Charms bar. Yous tin run across the official procedure in Figure 1-nine.

    Tip

    If you accept a keyboard, you can save yourself some steps. Printing +I to open up the Settings console of the Charms bar; then click Power and then "Shut down."

  • TileWorld and desktop . If y'all right-click the push, y'all get a undercover menu of useful commands (The First Push)—and in Windows 8.ane, one of them is "Close down or sign out." (In TileWorld, the button appears when you swipe in from the left border, or when y'all indicate 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 1-9. To shut down your computer, open the Charms bar (left). (Swipe inward from the correct side, or printing +C.) Click Settings. Right: On the Settings panel, select Power, and then "Shut down."

As shown in Effigy 1-9, shutting downwardly is simply one of the options for finishing your piece of work session. Here are your others.

Sleep

In the olden days, Windows offered a command called Standby. This special state of PC consciousness reduced the amount of electricity the computer used, putting it in suspended animation until you used the mouse or keyboard to begin working again. Whatever programs or documents y'all 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 downwards the computer.

Unfortunately, in that location were two big problems with Standby, especially for laptops. First, the PC all the same drew a trickle of ability this way. If yous didn't utilise your laptop for a few days, the battery would silently go expressionless—and everything you had open and unsaved would exist lost forever. 2nd, drivers or programs sometimes interfered with Standby, so your laptop remained on fifty-fifty though information technology was closed inside your carrying case. Your plane would land on the opposite coast, you'd pull out the laptop for the big coming together, and you'd discover that (a) the thing was roasting hot, and (b) the battery was dead.

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

Second, the instant you put the figurer to sleep, Windows quietly transfers a copy of everything in memory into an invisible file on the hard drive. Only it withal keeps everything live in retentivity—the battery provides a tiny trickle of power—in case you render to the laptop (or desktop) and desire to swoop back into work.

If you practice return presently, the next startup is lightning-fast. Everything reappears on the screen faster than you can say, "Redmond, Washington."

If you don't render presently, so Windows eventually cuts power, abandoning what it had memorized in RAM. (You control when this happens using the advanced power plan settings described on Recovery.) Now your calculator is using no power at all; it'south in hibernate style.

Fortunately, Windows still has the hard bulldoze copy of your work environment. So now when y'all tap a key to wake the computer, you may take to await 30 seconds or and so—not as fast equally 2 seconds, just certainly better than the 5 minutes information technology would accept to start up, reopen all your programs, reposition your document windows, and so on.

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

Yous can send a laptop to sleep just by closing the chapeau. On whatever kind of figurer, yous tin trigger Sleep past clicking Sleep in the Charms bar (Figure one-ix), or by pushing the PC's power push, if you've fix information technology up that way.

Restart

This command quits all open programs and then quits and restarts Windows again automatically. The computer doesn't actually plough off. (You might do this to "refresh" your figurer when you notice that it'south responding sluggishly, for instance.)

Shut down

This is what most people would call "really, really off." When you shut downwardly your PC, Windows quits all open up programs, offers you the opportunity to salve any unsaved documents, exits Windows, and turns off the reckoner.

In Windows viii, starting upwardly after a total shutdown is a lot faster than before, thank you to something Microsoft calls Hybrid Kicking. (Information technology combines elements of Hibernation manner with the total shutdown mode, in an try to save you time the next time y'all start up.)

All the same, at that place'due south most no reason to shut downwards your PC anymore. Sleep is well-nigh ever amend all the fashion around.

The only exceptions take to do with hardware installation. Anytime you lot have to open upward the PC to make a alter (installing memory, hard drives, or audio or video cards), or to connect something external that doesn't just utilise a USB or FireWire (1394) port, you lot should shut the thing down kickoff.

Tip

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

The Account Carte du jour

Come across your account name and film in the upper-correct corner of the Kickoff screen (Effigy 1-10)?

That'due south non just helpful information. The picture is also a pop-up bill of fare. And its commands all take to practise with switching from i account to some other. (In Windows' accounts feature, each person who uses this PC gets to see her ain desktop picture, e-mail account, files, and so on. See Affiliate 24.)

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

Effigy 1-10. Your business relationship icon isn't just an icon; it's likewise a popular-up menu. Click it to run across the "Sign out" and "Lock" commands, too every bit the names of other account holders for fast switching.

These commands used to be part of the standard Sleep/Restart/Shut Down card, merely they've moved to a new address. Here'due south what they do.

Tip

Some keystrokes from previous Windows versions are still around. For example, you tin nonetheless press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to summon the 3 commands described here: "Lock," "Switch user," and "Sign out"—plus a bonus link for the Chore Manager (When Programs Dice: The Chore Manager).

Sign out

When yous cull "Sign out," Windows closes all your open programs and documents (giving yous an opportunity to salvage any unsaved documents first). It then presents a new Login screen so that somebody else can log in.

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

Switch user

What if somebody just wants to log into the computer with her own proper noun and password—to do a quick calendar or e-mail check, for example?

Aye, the "Sign out" command works fine. Merely the interloper can save a few steps by just choosing her ain account name from the pop-up carte du jour that is your account icon. She'll be asked for her countersign, of course.

Lock

This control takes you dorsum to the Lock screen described at the starting time of this chapter. In essence, it throws a canvass of inch-thick steel over everything you were doing, hiding your screen from view. This is an ideal way to protect your PC from nosy people who happen to wander by your desk while you're abroad getting coffee or dejeuner.

Three Triggers for Slumber/Shut Downwards—and How to Change Them

You now know how to trigger the "Shut downwardly" command using the Charms bar. Merely there are even faster ways.

If you have a laptop, just shut the chapeau. If you have a desktop PC, just press its power button ( ).

In all these cases, though—carte, lid, power button— you can decide whether the calculator shuts down, goes to sleep, hibernates, or only ignores you lot.

To find the manufacturing plant setting that controls what happens when yous close the chapeau or hit the power button, open the Start screen and type power .

In the search results, the two relevant options are "Change what closing the hat does" and "Alter what the power buttons exercise."

For each of these options, y'all can choose "Slumber," "Do zip," "Hibernate," or "Close downward." And you can ready different behaviors for when the car is plugged in and when information technology's running on battery power.

Get Windows 8.ane: The Missing Manual at present with the O'Reilly learning platform.

O'Reilly members experience alive online preparation, plus books, videos, and digital content from nearly 200 publishers.