HARDWARE & SOFTWARE

It's hard to believe but it took me 5 minutes to figure out how to shut down Windows 8. No kidding. Clicking on the Start button just brings up the new Start screen. To properly shut down or restart Windows 8, you'd have to:







- Log off, click on the Power button and select either Restart or Shutdown
- Hover over the Start button, click on Settings, go to Power and select your options.
I don't even dare to ask why Microsoft would put the Shutdown and Restart options in a menu titled Settings -- it's beyond bizarre.


Solution: Thankfully, you can create a custom shortcuts for shutting down, restarting, hibernating, sleeping and locking the PC and put them on your Start screen. Right-click on your classic desktop, go to New/Shortcut and type in one of the following commands:


·         Shutdown: shutdown.exe –s –t 00
·         Restart: shutdown.exe –r –t 00
·         Hibernate: rundll32.exe PowrProf.dll,SetSuspendState
·         Sleep: rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState 0,1,0
·         Lock: Rundll32.exe User32.dll,LockWorkStation


Name them accordingly and choose an appropriate icon from Windows's default icon library:
 




Next, put them in the folder "%appdata%\microsoft\windows\Start Menu\Programs\". Go to the Windows 8 Start screen and search for each of your shortcuts. The search results should bring up the icons you just created. Right click on them and select Pin. Voila!


source : http://www.itworld.com