How to shutdown Windows 8 without the mouse?

Posted on December 11, 2012

This article will guide you with three different steps to how to shutdown Windows 8 without the mouse.

There are three different ways by which you can shutdown your PC without using mouse.

1. On the Desktop screen or the Start screen, Press alt+ctrl+delete.

You will be redirected to the logoff screen(shown below) automatically with four options(Task manager,Sign out, Switch user, Lock ).

Click on the Power button on the right bottom of the same screen to shut down the PC.

Clicking the Lock button will lock the current user account. After the account is locked, password box will prompt before anyone can access the account. A lock screen will look something like shown below.

Switch user is used to make a switch between two or more different accounts on the same PC. As soon as you click it, you will have a window displaying the existing users to make a switch.

If you wish to sign out from your account so that you can sign in through another account or some other reason, that’s what Sign out button does.

Task Manager displays the list of all currently running programs. Windows 8 Task Manager is far better than older one we have in earlier Windows. It becomes more neat and clean as it subdivides the tasks into a category (like apps, background processes and windows processes) so we one should know what task is running for what purpose and under which category it lies.

2. Second method is direct and quite easy than one we have discussed above. All you need to do is ,Go to Desktop screen and press ALT+F4 (make sure you have saved your work and no window is open), a shutdown Window with drop down menu will appear. Choose the desired action from the drop down menu by using arrow keys and then press Enter. Note ALT+F4 works only on the Desktop screen and not on the Start screen of Windows 8.

3. To shutdown the PC from the Start screen, Press windows key+C. Sidebar will pop on the right hand side of the screen. From the five options(Settings, Devices , Share, Start, and Search) click on the Settings button. A new window will pop up with a Power button at the bottom of the bar. Click on the Power button and choose from the given options (Sleep,shutdown,restart). Note, you can also do the same if you’re on desktop.