Practically always, when we are going to turn off the computer, we usually do it from the start menu, choosing the “Shut down” option . This possibility has been present since the first versions of the operating system and, in Windows 10, of course, it is also the fastest way to turn off the PC. However, one of the new features introduced in this version of Windows, specifically the Quick Start , has changed the way the PC is turned off. Instead of shutting down completely, it goes into a kind of hibernation, so it can boot up faster the next time. This has its advantages, but we users are interested.
Windows Fast Boot is a kind of simple “hibernation”. Instead of dumping all the RAM to the hard disk, as with this one, when we turn off the PC what we do is close all the programs that are open on the computer, but not destroy the instance of the Kernel in memory. In this way, the Windows kernel is saved on the hard disk, or SSD, and, when we reboot the PC, it is restored to memory instead of being opened from scratch.
There are many situations in which we are interested in shutting down the computer completely. For example, if we use several operating systems and we want to switch from one to another. Also in the event that our computer is experiencing problems and we want to reload the Kernel from scratch to solve them. Or simply because we are not interested in using the Windows Quick Start function.
Therefore, below we are going to explain several ways with which we can make Windows turn off completely.
Restarting the PC completely shuts down Windows and turns it back on
The quickest option to completely shut down the PC and turn it on again is to use the “Restart” option. By using this option, instead of dumping the Windows Kernel to memory and reloading it, the PC shuts down completely and reloads all the information from scratch.
It is true that when using the “Restart” option , Windows will automatically turn on again without us being able to do anything to prevent it. And, if afterwards we choose the option to turn off the PC again, this shutdown will not be complete again.
For this reason, the “Restart” option can basically help us to solve problems with the PC, but as a solution to always shut down the computer completely it does not work for us.
Disable Quick Launch
The Quick Start option is enabled by default in Windows 10. But, if we want, we can disable it. To do this, what we must do is open the Windows 10 Control Panel, and there move to the directory ” Hardware and sound> Power options” . Once here, click on “Choose the behavior of the Start / Shutdown buttons” that appears on the left of the window.
Here we can see a new configuration menu of the operating system from which we can configure the startup and shutdown options of the operating system. In the section “Shutdown configuration” we can see the different options that we can configure. The one that interests us, to allow Windows 10 to shut down completely, is to ” Enable fast startup “.
By default, this box will be checked. Therefore, we will have to disable it to disable this feature. Windows will probably ask us for Administrator permissions before unchecking this box. If we want, we can also take the opportunity to disable the “hibernate” option so that it does not appear in the start menu along with the other options.
Run a CMD command to shut down Windows
The “shutdown” command allows us to shut down the computer from any command prompt window, or CMD. This command can be customized with a wide variety of parameters depending on whether we want it to do one thing or another. Of course, one of the parameters offers us the possibility of completely shutting down the computer without having to resort to other techniques and without deactivating the Quick Start.
To do this, the command that we must execute on our PC is:
shutdown /s /f /t 0
The parameter “s” indicates that we want to turn off the PC, “f” that we want to force the closure of all open applications, and “t” the delay time, in seconds, until the shutdown (which, being zero, is instant ).
By running this command, Windows 10 will shut down completely instantly. And when we turn it back on, it will load the Windows kernel again to solve possible problems.
Create a shortcut
Running this command in CMD every time is impractical and not at all intuitive. Therefore, if we liked this option, we will be able to create our own shortcut with which we can turn off the computer completely by double clicking on an icon.
To do this, what we must do is place ourselves in the space where we want to create this icon (for example, on the desktop), right-click and choose the ” New> Shortcut ” option. In the location we will place the previous command, as we execute it in CMD, and we will choose the name that we want to give the new shortcut.
Ready. Now we will have an icon on our desktop, which, when double-clicking it, will take care of turning off our PC completely.
Use the Shift key when shutting down the PC
Another trick that is also very simple and quick to remember and apply is to use the shift key from the shutdown option in the start menu. Instead of doing Start> Shut down, what we can do to shut down the PC completely instead of “half” is to hold down the shift key on the keyboard while we click on the option to shut down Windows.
We will not see anything, but Windows will detect this pulse and, instead of performing the shutdown prepared for the quick start, it will proceed to perform a complete shutdown of the PC. The next time we turn on the computer again, it will start from scratch.
A great alternative in case you want to perform sporadic complete shutdowns, but continue to use the Windows Quick Start function regularly.