I yesterday exchanged my Dell laptop which came with Windows Vista and that has served me for well for many years for a Sony Vaio running Windows 8.

So the first thing I did was to install a Firewall and Antivirus software to keep the computer safe before starting to download other software and re-instate the working environment that I was used to.

On installing software and system updates the computer sometimes has to be manually restarted and so I moved the mouse pointer to the bottom left of the screen to click on the Start button, but it was not there. I looked around the desktop view (which is the same as the main desktop in previous versions of Windows with the Start button) but I couldn't see any button or menu item to restart windows and I couldn't also find the shutdown and logoff buttons or menu items. So I thought I'd go to the Start screen (which is a whole new screen which is like a full screen Start menu as there also is no Start menu in Windows 8, but that's another story in itself), but I couldn't find anything there either.

After a quick search on Google, I found that Shutdown and Restart (including Sleep) can be accessed by moving the mouse to the bottom right of the screen, clicking on Settings, clicking on Power, and you can Logoff by going to the Start screen, clicking on the user on the top-right and clicking on Signout.

This seemed to be too much to do in addition to becoming familar with the other updates in Windows 8, and so after hunting round the web, I found a way to create Shutdown, Restart and Logoff buttons for the Desktop, Taskbar and Start Screen and here's how:

On The Desktop:

Creating Restart Shortcut Icon:

Right-click and create a new shortcut.
In the field “Type the location of the item:” type in shutdown.exe /r /t 0 (that's a zero at the end).
Click Next.
In the field “Type s name for this shortcut:” type in Restart.
Click on Finisgh.

Creating Shutdown Shortcut Icon:

Right-click and create a new shortcut.
In the field “Type the location of the item:” type in shutdown.exe /p
Click Next.
In the field “Type a name for this shortcut:” type in Shutdown.
Click on Finish.

Creating Logoff Shortcut Icon:

Right-click and create a new shortcut.
In the field “Type the location of the item:” type in shutdown.exe /l (that's a lower case L).
Click Next.
In the field “Type a name for this shortcut:” type in Logoff.
Click on Finish.

All three icons will have the default shortcut icon and so to make them a bit more friendlier and easier to see:

Right click on an icon.
Click on “Change Icon”.
Select an icon from the window.
Click on “OK” and “OK” again.
Repeat the above 4 steps to assign other icons to the other 2 buttons.

You now have the following options for quicker access:

Desktop buttons for Restart, Shutdown and Logoff as below:

Taskbar icons, by pinning (right click, drag to taskbar and let go) the Desktop icons that you created to the taskbar as below:

Start screen tiles, by pinning (right click and click on “Pin to Start”) the Desktop icons to the Start page, as below:

And, if you are interested in what else the command prompt shutdown.exe in Windows 8 can do, below is a list of all the switches that you can place after shutdown.exe. Please leave a message below if you create anything interesting and useful.