How to Add Shortcuts in Windows 8 for Shutdown and Restart

How to Add Shortcuts in Windows 8 for Shutdown and Restart?

Windows 8 designed with tablets, like the iPad, in mind, so it has a different concept about certain features. You generally don’t shut down tablets completely. They just go into low power mode when you press the power button. That’s why the shut down feature is hidden. It’s not meant to be used a lot. However, adding shut down and restart shortcuts to the Win+X menu, or the Start screen, makes it easier for those of us using desktop computers or laptops we shut down to transport often.If you are new user to windows 8 and want to create a shortcut to restart or shutdown then it is very easy . you can do this using Windows 8 various UI improvements. The Metro Tiles interface is primarily designed for the touch screen but it’s equally easy to navigate with a mouse and keyboard. 

They got rid of the Start Menu in Windows 8 and as a side-result, there’s no dedicated menu option available to quickly shut-down or restart your Windows 8 computer.

How to Shutdown, Restart or Log Off in Windows 8:
Press Win + I and Windows 8 will open up the system menu from the right side of the screen There you will see a power button, left click it once and you are shown options to shutdown, hibernate or restart your computer. Pretty easy but if you are like me and unaware of the keyboard shortcut in the first place, it will seem impossible to find this option.
To create dedicated shutdown and restart buttons in Windows 8, follow these steps:

• Right click on an empty area in the desktop, 
• Choose “New>Shortcut” and enter the value as C:\windows\system32\shutdown /s /t 0. 
• This will create a simple system shutdown shortcut on your desktop, 
• Double clicking which will forcibly
• Close all running programs and shut down Windows 8.

To make the icon more visually appealing, it makes sense to associate a shutdown image to the icon. To do this, right click the icon, choose properties, switch to the “shortcut” tab and hit the “change icon” button.

Next, 

• Choose the red “Turn Off computer” icon (or any other icon you would like) 
• Press  “OK”.
• Move this shortcut to this location: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

That's all, now you should see the custom shutdown tile on Windows 8 Metro start screen . Drag the icon and place it on a suitable location on the Metro UI, I would prefer the top right corner.

There are several shutdown and power down commands that you can make into shortcuts. Creating shortcuts for these commands works exactly the same as our example shutdown shortcut.

Restart Computer shutdown.exe -r -t 00
Lock Workstation rundll32.exe User32.dll,LockWorkStation
Hibernate Computer rundll32.exe PowrProf.dll,SetSuspendState
Sleep Computer rundll32.exe PowrProf.dll,SetSuspendState 0,1,0

The regular approach I this. As there are no “shutdown” buttons in Windows 8, you can switch to the desktop view and press Alt+F4 to bring the Shut Down menu or the other option is that you press the shortcut key Win+C, go to Settings –> Power –> Shut down.
That’s too many steps especially when you are in a dual-boot environment and need to switch from one OS to another.Wouldn’t it more convenient if you could create simple tiles – like any other metro app – and place them on the Windows 8 desktop so that you can Shut down, Log off or Restart your Windows 8 computer with a simple click (or tap).

Enter createButtons.vbs – this is a simple utility (or rather a script) that will automatically add Shut Down and other related buttons to your Windows 8 screen. There’s no installation required – just download the file to your desktop and double-click to create the various buttons.