Usually, whenever there is a new feature for Windows, Microsoft advertises it widely in a blog post to let everyone know. Or if they don’t, people discover the feature soon after the update. However, a helpful feature sometimes slips through the cracks, only to be discovered years later.
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This was my reaction when I found this obscure emergency restart method for Windows 11 after seeing a post. Sysadmin subredditReddit user ‘-Steets-‘ shared the information in 2022, though other commenters claim the method existed on Windows XP, which came out 20 years ago.
To access emergency restart, press the CTRL + ALT + DEL keys on your Windows PC – a very common action. However, this time, hold down the CTRL key and click the Power button at the bottom-right corner of the screen.
This action brings up a message on the screen stating that you are attempting an emergency restart, along with “Click OK to restart immediately. Any unsaved data will be lost.” “Use it only as a last resort,” the statement concludes. Click “OK”, and your computer will shut down and restart normally.
You may be surprised about the difference between this emergency method and a regular restart. The answer goes back to the last word – “last resort”. As betanews Explained in 2023, the method is “an alternative to a hard reset.” This technique is the closest you can get to using the on/off button on your PC without having to press it.
This emergency restart is useful when your computer has frozen to the point where nothing is happening, and it does not respond to anything other than CTRL + ALT + DEL. This method is also helpful on laptops that don’t have a physical power button.
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There is no downside to using emergency restart. I did this on my desktop and several laptops – everything was fine. Again, this method is a last resort for some situations, although there’s nothing stopping you from using it as often as you want.
If you want another method, launch a command prompt and type “shutdown /r” to restart your machine. Instructions for other shutdown methods can be found here Microsoft’s Learn website,
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