How to restart Windows 10: You have purchased your first computer for a few days and, slowly, you are becoming familiar with the dynamics of Windows 10 , the operating system that you have found pre-installed on it. Being a shared PC, you have never found yourself in the situation of having to proceed with a restart, because there has always been someone else who has done this for you. On the other hand, you think it would be time to understand how to restart Windows 10 , but you are embarrassed to ask someone, since you think it is an all too trivial question.
Let me tell you right away: there are no trivial questions or for which you have to feel ashamed, but only answers that are not yet known and that, in this guide, I have every intention of providing you! In fact, below I will explain in detail how to restart a computer equipped with Windows 10 in different ways: through the appropriate function of the Start menu, using the keyboard or, even, the Command Prompt. Finally, it will be my care to show you how to perform a reboot in safe mode and, finally, how to restart the PC even remotely.
How do you say? Do you already feel heartened? Perfect, I couldn’t hope for better! Without waiting any longer, cut out a few minutes of free time for yourself and read carefully everything I have to say on the subject: I am sure that, at the end of this reading, you will be perfectly able to complete the task you have set for yourself and maybe even teach your friends something more! Having said that, I just have to wish you happy reading.
How to restart your PC on Windows 10
Depending on your needs and habits, you can restart Windows 10 in at least three different ways: via the Start menu , using the keyboard alone or, again, using the Command Prompt . Below I illustrate, in detail, the steps to be taken in each of the cases listed above.
How to restart Windows 10 from the Start menu
To restart the computer from the Windows Start menu , follow the instructions below: open the above menu, by clicking on the flag icon located in the lower left corner of the screen, click on the Stop / Power button (the one in the shape of ‘ switch ) located at the bottom left and choose the item Restart the system from the small menu that is proposed to you. Nothing more, nothing less!
Alternatively, you can achieve the same result by right-clicking on the Start button , moving the mouse over the Close or disconnect item attached to the menu displayed on the screen and finally selecting the Restart system option .
How to restart Windows 10 from keyboard
The mouse suddenly decided to abandon you but do you urgently need to restart Windows 10? Don’t worry, you can easily do it even using the keyboard .
First, press the combination of Win + D keys on the keyboard, to display the “empty” desktop, then press the Alt + F4 keys to display the classic Windows shutdown menu. When this happens, press the down arrow , to make the Restart system item selected in the central drop-down menu and, to finish and restart the computer, press the Enter key .
If you wish, you can also create a specific keyboard shortcut for the restart, to be invoked quickly at any time: to proceed in this sense, right-click on an empty spot on the desktop, select the New and Connection items from the menu that appears, type powershell restart-computer -force in the text field that appears on the opened screen and click on the Next button . Finally, give the icon you are going to create a name and click on the Finish button .
Afterwards, right click on the newly created icon, choose the Properties item from the menu that appears, click in the Shortcut Keys text field and, at this point, press the key combination you want to use to restart the computer ( eg Ctrl + Shift + R ), until it is displayed in the aforementioned text field.
When you are done, click on OK to confirm the change and close the window: starting from this moment, you can quickly restart the PC by pressing the key combination specified above.
How to restart Windows 10 from Prompt
To restart Windows 10 from the Command Prompt , first start the latter, calling it from the Windows System folder located in the Start menu . Once the Prompt window has opened, type in the command shutdown /rfollowed by pressing the Enter key to immediately restart the computer. If you wish, you can also use the -t X parameter to restart the computer after X seconds.
Alternatively, you can achieve the same result using Windows PowerShell , the “advanced” command line integrated into all supported Microsoft operating systems. To access it, right click on the Windows Start button (the flag located in the lower left corner of the screen) and choose the Windows PowerShell item from the menu displayed on the screen.
At this point, you just have to type the command restart-computer -forcein the window that opens, press the Enter key on the keyboard and wait for the computer to restart. Easy, don’t you think?
How to restart Windows 10 in safe mode
As you probably already know, Windows safe mode is a particular boot mode, widely used for diagnostics, in which the operating system loads only the components essential for its operation. Although, apparently, accessing it may seem complicated, I can guarantee that it is not so: in a few moments you can realize it yourself!
To begin with, then right-click on the Windows Start button (the flag icon located at the bottom left), choose the Settings item from the menu that appears and go to the Update and security and Recovery sections (left).
Now, identify the Advanced Restart box , click on the Restart button now located inside it and wait a few seconds for Windows to load the boot options. When this happens, press, in sequence, on the buttons Troubleshoot , Advanced options , Startup settings and, to finish and restart the computer, Restart .
When the computer restarts, you will be shown a particular menu containing all the system startup modes: to enter safe mode, press key 4 on the keyboard; if you need to access the Internet from the same, instead, press the button 5 , in order to start the safe mode with network support.
Alternatively, you can also access the advanced startup options much faster: click on the Start button , then on the Stop button (the one in the shape of a switch) and, by pressing and holding the Shift key on the keyboard, click on the Reboot item attached to the menu that appears.
For information on the other procedures you can use to access Windows 10 Safe Mode , I urge you to take a look at the specific guide I made on the topic.
How to restart Windows 10 without installing updates
In operating systems prior to Windows 10, it was possible to reboot the system without installing updates using the shutdown command from the Command Prompt, as I showed you in the specific section of this tutorial.
At the time of writing, however, this method is no longer functional , since Windows 10 proceeds with the installation of updates even in the event of a restart from the command line. The only method you can use to prevent this from happening is to turn off the computer by pressing and holding the power button for a few seconds.
However, let me tell you, this method is not at all safe and could have unpleasant consequences (such as data loss or physical damage to the disks ), so I strongly advise against using it! If you really want to avoid installing updates, you can disable automatic download using one of the methods that I mentioned in this tutorial .
How to restart stuck Windows 10
If you can no longer use the computer because running a program has blocked it from working, you can try to restart the system through the Windows 10 security options screen which, as a rule, can also be opened in the event that Windows is completely blocked.
To access it, press the key combination Ctrl + Alt + Del on the keyboard, then press the Stop button (the one in the shape of a switch ) located at the bottom right and select the item Restart from the menu that is proposed to you. If necessary, press the Yes button to confirm the willingness to proceed even if there are other users connected to the system.
Finally, should a second screen appear regarding the programs that Windows cannot finish, press the Force restart button to force the computer to restart. Keep in mind that doing so will cause all the work currently in progress on the system to be lost (including documents).
How do you say? Windows is totally frozen and you can’t access the security options or restart it in any way? In this case, you must necessarily opt for a “physical” restart of the computer, with all the consequences of the case (loss of changes to open files, potential data corruption and so on): press and hold the physical power button to a few seconds, until the machine switches off completely. When this happens, press the same button again to start it.
How to restart Windows 10 automatically
If you need to schedule one or more automatic restarts of Windows 10, you can use the Scheduler included in the operating system. How do you say? Have you never heard of it? Then let me briefly explain what it is: Windows Scheduler allows, in a short time, to program operations to be performed completely automatically, without the need to start them manually.
Using it is not difficult: first, open the Windows 10 Start menu , write the words scheduler in the search field located at the bottom and click on the first result that is proposed to you. Once in the utility window, click on the Create basic activity … item located on the right, to start the wizard for creating a new planned activity.
Now, to begin with, indicate a name to be assigned to the custom action (eg Restart the computer ) and a brief description of the event (eg Restart the computer every day at a set time ) in the appropriate text fields and, when you are done, click on the Next button . Then specify when to start the activity you are creating by placing a check mark next to the available options: every day , every week , every month or only once .
When you are ready, click on the Next button , specify the recurrence interval of the event, using the screen that is proposed to you (e.g. the day and time to schedule the restart, if you have chosen to perform the operation once) and press Next again .
Then, put a check mark next to the Start program item , click again on the Next button and configure the next window as follows: type the command powershellin the program or script text field , write the parameters restart-computer -forcein the Add topics text box (optional) and then click on the Next and End buttons to create the new scheduled operation, which will be immediately active.
Basically, the computer will only restart if, on the planning date, you are logged in to Windows; to change this behavior and make the computer restart regardless of the login, return to the main Scheduler screen, click on the Scheduler Library folder located on the left, locate the previously created scheduled action, right click on its name and select the Properties item from the proposed menu.
Finally, go to the General tab , affix the check mark next to the items Run regardless of user connection and Run with the highest privileges , click on the OK button and, if necessary, enter the Windows login password to complete everything .
You can disable automatic restarts at any time by right-clicking on the name of the activity located in the main window of the Scheduler and selecting the items Disable (to temporarily “turn off” the activity) or Delete (to cancel it completely) from the menu contextual that is proposed to you.
How to restart Windows 10 remotely
Windows 10 (as well as almost all currently supported versions of Windows) integrates a feature to enable the remote reboot of the system. In order for the procedure to be successful, however, it is essential that the computer that must be restarted and the one from which to restart must be connected to the same LAN or to the same virtual private network (VPN) .
Furthermore, in order for everything to be successful, you must “prepare” the computer you want to remotely restart, intervening first on the system registry . Before moving on, I recommend that you create a backup copy, to be restored in case of problems, using the instructions that I have illustrated in this guide .
When you’re done, do the following: press the Win + R key combination , type the word regedit in the proposed text field, press the Enter key on the keyboard and then the Yes button to pass the Windows security check.
Once inside the Registry Editor, go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE> SOFTWARE> Microsoft> Windows> CurrentVersion> Policies path , right click on the System folder and select the New> DWORD Value (32 bit) item from the menu that is proposed to you. Name the newly created value LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy and press the Enter key on the keyboard. When you’re done, double-click on the value you just created, type 1 in the Value data field and press the OK button .
At this point, exit the Registry Editor and proceed with activating the remote management of the Windows registry: to do this, press the key combination Win + R again , type the command services.msc and press the Enter key of the keyboard.
Coupling in the new window, find the line Remote Registry from the list of available services, double-click on it, set the dropdown menu Startup type on the entry Manual and press the buttons Start and OK , to confirm the changes.
To conclude, write down the computer name , as you will need it later: to recover it, right-click on the Windows Start button , choose the Windows PowerShell item from the contextual menu displayed and issue the whoami command , followed by pressing the Enter key , all inside the window that opens.
If everything went in the right direction, you should display a string of the usernamename (e.g. notebook-saver ): the information you are looking for is located to the left of the backslash separator character (“”). At this point, restart your computer for the previously activated changes to take effect.
Starting from this moment, you can remotely reboot the PC as follows: open a PowerShell / Command Prompt window from the computer through which you intend to act (which, I remind you, must be connected to the same local network / VPN as the machine you want to restart), issue the command net use \nomecomputerfollowed by pressing the Enter key and, when requested, enter the login credentials (username and password) of the computer you intend to restart. If everything went the right way, you should get the text Command Execution Successful as output .
To conclude, type the command shutdown /iand press the Enter key on the keyboard, click on the Add … button , type the name of the computer in the text field that appears later and press the OK button . At this point, set the drop-down menu Choose one of the following options to Restart , remove the check mark from the item Planned and enter in the Comment field the reason why you are preparing to restart the computer. When you’re done, press the OK button and you’re done: after about 60 seconds, the machine of your choice will be restarted.
If you think this solution is a little too complex, you can opt for the use of a remote control solution, such as TeamViewer : through the latter, you can control any PC through the Internet, exactly as if you were in front of it to his screen. If you want more information, I invite you to consult my guide entirely dedicated to the topic .