Normally, you click the Windows start button to shutdown Windows 10 since the power button lies there. But, what if this button suddenly doesn’t work. That’s what happened to me a couple days ago. I had to use some Windows 10 shortcuts that I know to work before I eventually restarted my Windows 10 system via Command Prompt.

In addition to via power button — which you can access on the start menu –, there are several alternatives you can use to shut down your Windows 10 PC. Of course, I am not talking about hard shutdown here. Hard shutdown is the last alternative you can opt to once your Windows 10 is having hang.

Following are 3 ways to shut down Windows 10.

1. Shutdown Windows 10 via start menu

This is the most common way to shut down Windows 10. You can use the Power button which you can access by pressing the start menu button. Pressing the Power button itself won’t shutdown your Windows 10 system right away. Instead, there are three options offered by this button: Sleep, restart and shut down.

You can also right-clicking the start menu button to shutdown your Windows 10 system. Right-clicking the start menu will open the Quick Access Menu. Select Shut down or sign out -> Shut down to shut down your Windows 10.

2. Shutdown Windows 10 using Alt+F4

Alt+F4 is a keyboard shortcut used to close the active app window. But, if you execute this shortcut on Window 10 desktop, it can be used to shutdown your Windows 10 system.

If you press the Alt+F4 when you are on Windows 10 desktop, you will see a window dialog as follows.

This window dialog offers five options you can opt to which you can see by clicking the drop-down menu. In addition to shut down, you can also restart your computer, switch user, sign out and sleep. The default option itself is shut down.

To shut down your Windows 10 using this method, simply select Shut down and click the OK button.

3. Shutdown Windows 10 using Alt+F4 via Command Prompt.

If the start menu of your Windows 10 suddenly doesn’t work, try to press the Windows+R buttons to open the Run dialog. Type “cmd” and hit enter to open Command Prompt. If it is work, you are save. You can shut down your Windows 10 via Command Prompt.

To shut down Windows 10 (and other Windows versions) via Command Prompt, type shutdown /s. The option “s” will immediately shutdown your Windows without delay. If you want to shut down your Windows 10 after certain period, you can use the option “t” followed by your desired interval (in second). For instance, if you want to shut down your Windows after two minutes (120 seconds), you can type shutdown /s /t 120.

In addition to shut down, you can also use the shutdown command to logout or restart your computer. Following are common options you can use on shutdown command.

• shutdown /s : Shutdown
• shutdown /t : Shutdown with interval
• shutdown /r : Restart
• shutdown /i : Log out
• shutdown /a : Abort the shutdown

To see all options you can use on the shutdown command, you can simply type shutdown without any option.