However, if you are using Windows 8 on a desktop or a laptop, you understand the pain of shutting it down or re-powering it. We have covered the various ways to shutdown Windows 8. And, to help you cut down on the steps we also worked on creating a taskbar shortcut for the same. Cool Tip: Windows 8 users may be missing the Hibernate option that used to work as a great session saver on previous versions. Here’s how to activate the same on Windows 8. Today we intend to lay down the steps to help you create a similar shortcut on the start screen. It would be a separate tile and your one-tap destination for turning off your machine. Let us begin. Step 1: Navigate to any folder and start creating a shortcut. Right-click on an empty space and choose New -> Shortcut. Step 2: The Create Shortcut wizard will ask you for the item you wish to create a shortcut for. Paste the following command in the text box and then hit the Next button. %systemroot%\system32\shutdown.exe /p Step 3: Then choose a name for the shortcut. The default name would be shutdown. You can have something like Turn Off or Power Off (my personal preference) as well. Click on Finish and your shortcut is ready to be pinned. You have two choices now. Either you can pin it to the start screen directly (go to Step 7) or do that after choosing an icon for the shortcut (continue reading with Step 4). Step 4: Right-click on the shortcut and open its properties window. Step 5: Highlight the Shortcut tab and then choose Change Icon. Step 6: Now, select an icon that makes it easy for you to recognize the tile among others. The shutdown icon as I have selected makes an ideal choice. Click on Ok and exit. Step 7: Right-click on the shortcut and choose Pin to Start. With that, a tile to shut down your machine will be created on the start screen. One tap and the machine will shut down with any further confirmation.
Conclusion
You can address the rebooting of your machine in a similar fashion. The difference would be to use shutdown.exe /r /t 0 instead of shutdown.exe /p as in Step 2. I wish Microsoft had such a tile by default. Even though they have concentrated on touch devices they should have put some features to make it easy for desktop users as well. Try it out and you will save yourself those extra clicks.
