“Shutting off Windows used to be a simple matter of clicking the Start button and choosing the ‘Shut down’ option,” Lance Whitney reports for CNET. “But the Windows 8 beta has no Start button. So how do you shut it down?”
“Microsoft has concocted a series of manuevers and keyboard shortcuts to shut down the new OS,” Whitney reports. “Though slower and clumsier than going through the Start button, the new steps at least let you fully turn Windows 8 off.”
Whitney reports, “The most basic way to shut down Windows 8 is through the Charms bar.”
Read about all of the various machinations required to turn off an OS comprises of tiles meant to hide a severe case of AppLack™ here.
MacDailyNews Take: Charms bar? Who thought that up, a Care Bear?
“Start” to stop was so Microsoftian, so emblematic of the non-intuitiveness of that bloated piece of Mac wannabe dreck, we almost can’t believe it’s gone. Well, as Whitney explains, “none of them [ways to shut down Windows 8] are quick or convenient,” so Windows 8 obviously remains Microsoft through and through.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “The_Wzrd” for the heads up.]
I would suggest a sledgehammer.
Hollow points would be best and quicker.
“Nuke it from orbit to be sure!”
“Overkill is underrated”
The Quisat Sadarak has spoken… SPICE!
Kwisatz Haderach!!!!!
Paul isn’t very pleased with you…
:)))
Jiminy, if any company could have become The Company, it was Microsoft… Now, it’s more likely Google.
(Weyland-Yutani, btw 🙂 )
A 12 gauge and some tannerite. Way more fun.
DAMHIK >8^)
yes!
Can’t you just pull the plug? That’s how it was done back in the heyday of MS-DOS. (The power switch also worked, but I don’t new if the new Microsoft boxes have something so simple.)
I say pick something just as slow and excruciatingly painful. Carefully and slowly pour hydrochloric (battery) acid on it. Remember not to splash.
Hey, Mac That Roared:
Nice comment. However, battery acid is sulphuric acid not hydrocloric.
Meh… Just grab some Trinitrotoluene (TNT) 😀
Makes for a more satisfying feeling in the end.
HA !! That’s the ticket !!
“Shutting off Windows used to be a simple matter of clicking the Start button…”
Right there, any intelligent person should understand that this thing was designed by MORONS.
Exactamundo!
Yup, it immediately shows how upside down and backwards Windows is. I can’t believe how many people just accept it.
Working for Microsoft must be so frustrating and embarrassing.
And dragging a drive icon to drop on the trash can icon will… uh, erase it? No it ejects it, silly!
Macs are so simple to use you don’t need a computer guru. But if you don’t understand something, just ask a Mac Genius!
and the icon changes from trash to eject!
> The most basic way to shut down Windows 8 is through the Charms bar.
“Charms bar”? Is that supposed to be an improvement on the “Start button”?
Must be like a Mars bar.
Garbage. Still. Just crap. When will the scale tip towards apple. How can so many people still want ms windows crap.
Charms bar? Who designed this? An 8th grade girl?
I just love the fairy tale aspect to everything Microsoft: Charms bars, wizards, etc. What i like about Macs is that they just work, no wizards needed. If something needs to be set up, there’s a “setup assistant” instead of a “setup wizard,” which implies trickery and black magic to get things to work.
Sheesh! Charms indeed.
MacroSloth feels the “Harry Potter” market prefers the magical land of 8.
Well MS did invent the “Ribbon” style menu bar for Word, Excel, etc.
Starts singing… “If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair”
The same 8th grader that gave them ribbons.
“Charm” is a phrase used by quantum physicists. IIRC, it’s a kind of quark.
Years ago I knew a food chemist who used the word “charm” in the title of a paper he wrote. The title got past the reviewers and was published. Like almost all published scientific papers, it was included in the online databases used by other scientific researchers.
He was very proud of the fact that every time particle physicists were searching for “charm”, they’d get a hit on his paper.
True story! Honest!
Not that has anything to do with MS’s logic. I tend to believe the notion it was done by an 8 year old girl. (8th grade would be too old.)
The med school library at OSU returned the text “Surgery on Compact Manifolds” to the publisher. They didn’t know the math library had ordered it. 😆
what would Surgery do to compact manifolds?
If you really want to know, start with Surgery On Compact Manifolds by C. T. C. Wall. 😀
Same person who came up with ‘squirt’.
The Charms Bar is right next to the Glee Bar… 😉
Could be worse – could have been a Sparkle Bar.
“To activate the Twilight desktop theme, go to the Sparkle Bar and click the vampire icon…”
Perfect.
Ahahahahahahahah an Os for the twilhards 😛 my sister would be thrilled – if she wasn’t already a die-hard mac user 😀
Nope. It’s opposite or very close to a more attractive genius bar…
Instructions for shutting down Windows 8.
– If you’re on a notebook or laptop, open the back & remove the batteries.
– If you’re on a desktop PC, pull out the power plug from the wall outlet.
Thank you ladies & gentlemen, that will be all.
So THAT is why Windows laptops have removable batteries…!
what if your computer lacks a removable battery? Say like the MacBook Air? Then what??
You mean your zenbook, yes? Why would you poison a beautiful macbook air with Windoze?
> Thank you ladies & gentlemen, that will be all. <
Thank God for that.
How about opening a cmd window, and then typing
shutdown -t 0
That ought to do it rather quickly.
Charms Bar…. OMG! LOL I should have downloaded the beta when I had the chance. I guess I’m not charmed enough.
Silly PC users still shutting down there machines. I haven’t actually powered off my machine in years. Actually I can’t POS samsung monitor wont restart if i let it cooldown.
Hey – just don’t launch Windoze – shutdown problem solved!
Best answer yet!
Charms bar. Does it come with a bracelet?
Oh how far Microsoft has fallen. 🙂
“Charms Bar”
The drinks are magically delicious!
(You will want one after using Windows 8)
Anyone who’s spent any time with the preview knows there’s several ways to shut down Windows 8. All you have to do is look for the pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, or green clovers.
Don’t forget the blue diamonds!
you both left out the purple horse shoes.
Those are only available in the Windows 8 Penultimate Edition, which is signed by Ballmer with a crayon.
Charms bar; did somebody’s eight year old win a competition to name it or something? Fuck me…(shakes head…)
Silly Rabbit, unplug it and plug back in when you want to start up …. What could be simpler ….. If you like get an extension cord with a built-in switch, Silly Rabbit!
Just unplug it from the wall, duh… (laptops remove battery)
“But the Windows 8 beta has no Start button. So how do you shut it down?”
Ultimate Shutdown: Just get a Mac
Voodoo charms to keep the OS from freezing or crashing
Not to defend MS but I recall getting ribbed ages ago when I explained that to eject a disk on a Mac, you had to drag it to the Trash…
That was just one way and it was a short cut.
Speaking of dragging it to the trash, that was also the way you got rid of programs you didn’t want any more. Ask a Windows user how to get rid of a program.
The main has a point, and not just the one at the top of his head. How did one feel about dragging files to the trash and then having to drag A WHOLE HD to the trash to eject it? WTF was that?! Talk about nervousness! Were you about to erase your drive or just go through the extra step that Windows didn’t have for removing a drive… same goes for flash drives, etc.
“The man…”
I guess Home edition gets stickers for the keyboard, Platinum edition gets a bracelet, and business gold edition gets a decoder ring
I can’t wait to see which amurican sues first over Charms… and why.
Id love to sue on the basis that I was never once charmed bu the charms bar, and i was expecting some kind of charm.
what? oh come on. People sue for stupider things. 🙂 Oh wait, most are windows whores. my bad.
“The most basic way to shut down Windows 8 is through the CROW bar.”
“Charms bar? Who thought that up, a Care Bear”
Yeah, totally. What the F are charms? Those little decoration things Asian girls have on their cell phones? That’s a little fruity don’t you think, Ballmer?
He didn’t get mature developers.
Yip, I was scratching my head for the same; had DLed Win8 Preview, installed in VMware to play around. After five minutes of torture err. use, I was trying to figure out how to turn the bl**dy thing off. Took me further 5 minutes to finally do that.
Then just ten seconds to delete that virtual machine!!!
Mark my words, this is gonna be a bigger fiasco than Vista!
Um…and these shut down instructions are for just ONE of the NINE variants of Windows 8. Oh, boy…Lucky Charms!
Hey, no Rush Limbaugh news or quotes today? Aren’t we supposed to be admiringly following him because he likes Macs? No matter what?….
Auramac, I got just two words for you, Be Have!
(Son, that was a long ‘a’ in ‘Have.’)
no rush didn’t speak about macs today, well he did give someone a MacBook pro/air though. (he never said which one)
auramac, I am sure he is waiting for your call, wanting desperately to know what your reaction to whatever you think he may have said, but……….sometimes we just have to wait our turn.
The fastest way is to just wait for the next BSOD.
Charms…. cute names as you try to convince yourself that you aren’t in computing hell
Users of Windows 8 will be able to fart rainbows.
… and shit bricks!
=:~)
So when the Charms bar crashes, which you know it will, can people say, “They’re after me lucky charms!”
Seriously though, this thing is really hard to use with a track pad. Maybe touch or a mouse is better, but I’m pretty lost in the Metro UI. I didn’t feel that way when I first picked up an iPod Touch. (Or, heck even Android for that matter.)
CNUT has a gallery or 30 years of Windows. Look how horrible it looked compared to the Mac. Then Windows 95 came and blatantly ripped off the Mac.
http://news.cnet.com/2300-10805_3-10011496.html?tag=txt;post.gallery
I downloaded the Win 8 review and installed it on VMWare Fusion. It’s rough as one would expect something almost a year from release might be, but the shutdown was no problem. Click on your user name and you get the options associated with the start button.
I don’t like Metro, but it is clear Microsoft has been trying hard and has come up with some good ideas if they follow through and finish the job. I somehow seriously doubt pro users are going to take to the Metro interface which I would turn off if it were my working OS.
“it’s rough as one would expect something almost a year from release might be”
Hah, that implies Microsoft will actually spend the ensuing months smoothing W8’s rough edges. They’re either going to leave them alone, or somehow find a way make them even rougher.
So shutting down Windows 8 is a charm!
Using Parallels just choose shut down from the contextual menu. Well, for the developer preview. But I’m sure it will work with the new even bulkier new one. Haven’t installed it yet to rest but was not impressed with mango.
Charms bar is where they serve the KOOL AID!
Lots of it will be needed to keep the PC sheep in line for this “up…grade”, like in “up… your… you know!
I’ve been trying out the Windows 8 preview. Android blatantly ripped off iOS. At least Microsoft tried something slightly different. It’s not intuitive (like Microsoft probably thinks), but Windows users may like it better than Windows 7.
Overall, it’s desperate.
I downloaded it on release day and its horrible. By far the worse OS they ever put out. Might be worse than 3.0. Going from XP to Windows 7 buried options, now with Windows 8 its a nightmare trying to get around without the Start menu. Its to much change all at once. Maybe on a tablet it would be ok, but not on a PC with a mouse and keyboard, its a big piece of trash as it stands now. I think they need to take a couple of more years and do it right instead of pushing it out this year as I believe is the plan. But look at the past, every other OS is a failure. Windows 7 was a success now its time for another failure and the next OS will probably be another success if history repeats itself.
The Metro interface is designed to work best on a touchscreen device. I’m sure you would call IOS a “big piece of trash” if you tried to use same on a Mac (Where you would have no mouse or keyboard support at all.).
FWIW, it’s kind of ludicrous to claim every other version of Windows a failure when even Vista ha(s)d a user base over 20 times the size of OSX.
Just start 3 or 4 video streams.
That used to shut them down for me….
The fastest way to shutting down Windows 8 is to never turn it on in the first place. Save yourself the anguish and trouble. – A recovering Microsofholic.
This is the most hilarious thread of comments I’ve read on MDN in months!
I think ‘Charms’ is a subliminal attempt to market ‘Lucky Charms’ cereal!! I’m sure a good Abbot & Costello routine could be made from ‘press start to stop’ and no start to stop, ‘now use charms bar.’ Anyone up to it?! 🙂
Abbott: How do you turn it off?
Costello: Start
Abbott: How?
Costello: Start
Abbott: Stop!
Costello: Exactly
Costello: I got a new Windoze computer, where’s the ‘Start’ button?
Abbott: There is no ‘Start’ button.
Costello: So how do I turn it off if there is no ‘Start’ button?
Abbott: You use a ‘Charm.’
Costello: My computer is charmed?
Abbott: No, you use a ‘Charm.’
Costello: So now I got a VooDoo computer! Do I need a Witch Doctor?
Abbott: No, I told you; you need to use a ‘Charm.’
Costello: So where do I find the ‘Charm?’
Abbott: On the ‘Charm Bar.’
Costello: I get a’Charm’ at a ‘Charm Bar?!’ I give up! My computer is ‘Cursed!’ I’m getting a Mac!
I don’t turn off Windows 8. Windows 8 turns ME off.
Same here. Windows been a turnoff for a long time.
There will be more mothers around the world calling their son and asking:
“how I turn this off?”
and then… how ti explain them what the hell the “charm bar” is!!!
LOL
I would suggest not bothering with Windows 8 and get a Mac with OSX that has a command called shutdown in one simple menu!
What a piece of garbage Windows 8 is. Is it an OS or a game? Charms bar, really?
The best way to turn off Windows is throw it out of one!
I had an old version of Windows in the house, left over from 1997. I had to get rid of it though, it was frightening the children.
It would be a LOT easier and MUCH better for the global user community if it was just switched off – for good.
shutdown?????? I never shut my macbook down. Jus close the lid, take it to the next place, open up and keep going. All this shutdown stuff. Is there one on my mac? Where can I find it, I’ll take a picture just in case I ever need it.
For those who have actually drilled down in W8 (wait), the Metro lipstick simply obscures the underlying and familiar Win7 controls. Sublime Text 2 installs just like it does on Win7. An HTML5/CSS3/JavaScript/JQuery web app works in IE10 exactly like it does with IE9, Safari, Firefox, and Chrome on Win7. W8 may appeal to those with Windows phones — the rest will flock to OS X or remain entrenched with Win7 without the lipstick.
You fanboys are hilarious. I’ve been a Mac user since about 1994 but I’m not one of you zealots that has his head so far up his behind as to think that nothing else exists in the PC world that is a good product and who feels the need to slam everything else and especially Windows.
A while back I had a Dell laptop fall into my hands for next to nothing. This unit was manufactured in 2006 and when it got to me it had Windows XP on it. I upgraded the RAM to the max 4GB it will take, got a super cheap deal on a T7200 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo cpu to drop in it and lastly I bought a 500GB 7200rpm drive that some guy had pulled from his MacBook Pro for $40. Even if I had paid full used market value for this unit I would still only have roughly $350 into it, even with all the upgrades. The last upgrade, and one of the points to this post, was to install Windows 7.
Windows 7 is far and away the best OS Microsoft has ever produced and after having sufficient time to put it through it’s paces, on an almost 6 year old laptop, I can honestly say that I have no complaints and quite frankly I would go so far as to say that the Windows 7 user experience is quite pleasant and obviously doesn’t require that much in the way of hardware to run nicely. Even without a dedicated graphics card in this laptop the Aero features still work and the OS appearance is as nice as any flavor of OS X.
I took a quick look at everymac.com to see what the equivalent MacBook Pro from the same era had to offer in features etc and with the exception of the CPU which is 2.16GHz in the MBP my little Dell is superior in ever specification including the 8X Dual Layer drive. The MBP is still showing a retail used price of between $800-1000 so even if you go way beyond fair and knock that down to $600 for a decent shape used unit, my Dell would still be only a little over half of that.
Feature for feature and then on to price my Dell beats the MBP hands down by a wide margin. And like I said, Windows 7 has been an excellent experience. I did spend a little money on security software(anti-virus, spyware etc) but it wasn’t that much and it runs in the background with very little ie a basically unnoticeable performance hit.
Moving on, this Dell was a fun little project but I’m also in the market for a new laptop and I’ll move this one on to my g/f or something. I’ve been pricing various models and there is no way in hell I will be buying a new MacBook Pro. The price disparity between the MBP fitted out the way i want it and say a Toshiba with the exact same feature set, is hundreds of dollars. Now that my little Dell has given me an appreciation for Windows 7, where I previously would have balked at the Toshiba based on OS, now it’s an easy decision to grab it or something like it over the MBP.
Apple makes good products but given that all of the components are the same as everyone elses they can’t justify the huge price difference any longer.
There’s just no disputing that.
Sigh. This blog is not WindowsDailyNews, yet many of us have XP or Win7 present from virtualized or multi-boot solutions. My best friend uses a MacBook Air for work, but his go to machine at home is a dual-boot XP/Win7 Dell Inspiron tower. It is his comfort zone, and out of respect and friendship, I will not mock his personal choice — nor yours. Having used Mac, Windows, and multi-platform UNIX boxes spanning a lengthy career, my personal choice remains OS X.
That’s great. How does OS X run on it?
‘themacguy’ <- Oh look, an old world anonymous coward anti-Apple troll.
There’s just no disputing that.
Disputed: Every Mac has consistently been LESS expensive than the equivalent Windows box because the ACTUAL cost of any computer is:
1) Shelf Price
+
2) Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
–
3) Return On Investment (ROI)
The TCO of Windows boxes is so high and their ROI is so low that their cost is consistently HIGHER than equivalent Macs.
Illustrations:
• I am STILL running my 1993 Mac Quadra 650, upgraded with a 601 PPC daughterboard, in my office as an imaging workstation.
• I am STILL running a 24/7 FTP server on the Internet from my 1997 PowerMac 9600, upgraded with a G3 900 MHz CPU board.
• I am STILL running older Mac software on my 1998 PowerBook Wallstreet, upgraded with a G4 500 MHz CPU board.
IOW: Macs cost less to run. Macs provide more value. Macs last longer, providing consistent quality results.
Oh, and I’ve been using Microsoft based PCs longer than I’ve been using Macs. I’ve been on the board of the local Windows PC user group for years. Darn, I know what I’m talking about.
Troll deleted. 😆
This will be Granny’s solution for turning off Windows 8:
1) Desktop PC: Pull the electric cord out of the wall.
OR
2) If you gave Granny a laptop: Pull the electric cord out of the wall then waits around for the battery to die.
RESULT:
Oops.
Registry damage.
Darn.
FWIW I just gave up trying to install 8 with Parallels. Hopelessly buggy. Account errors. File access problems. The developer preview was okay. Well, meaning it actually ran.
I work with Windows, and my favorite way to shutdown/restart is through Alt-F4.
“Charms Bar”.
Sounds like a demented breakfast bar.