Thursday 21 March 2019

Things I didn't know: part 183 - Alt F4 and shutdown

Once, a very long time ago, I used to be a power windows user.

Built and maintained windows based network installs, that sort of thing. Then I got to be a boss and had people to do things for me.

So while I learned and did new things I definitely lost my technical edge. In fact the last version of Windows I really knew anything about was XP, and even then I really just used my XP machine for remote console stuff and getting onto linux machines.

And when you work like that you really don't know a lot about the underlying OS, it's only a vehicle to get you there.

So much so that for the last 10 years or so before I retired I never really used Windows. Ok I did a bit of windows 7 at home, but 90% was mac or linux, and as I say it could have been BeOS as long as it ran a standard, and recent, web browser and you could run an ssh tool without having to put a snail in your left ear and dance round a tree at midnight. Standardish applications were useful, but once LibreOffice cracked Microsoft Office file level compatibility it really didn't matter what you used (unless of course you had to deal with a funding proposal created with some really bizarre Word template),

But I did use windows 7 enough to know about automatic updates and windows' irritating habit of sitting there and fiddling about installing updates when all you wanted to do was shut down and go to the pub.

Of course what you do in a work situation, or at home, is mutter under your breath and leave it to it. That is providing you don't want to take your machine home with you.

I did use to idly wonder what you did if it wanted to fiddle with itself when you were in a situation where you simply had to do shutdown - such as in an airport and about to go through security.

I thought there must be a way of doing it, but never bothered to find out, after all I had a MacBook or Dell XPS with Ubuntu as my work laptop(s).

Well yesterday it happened to me. I've been using my Thinkpad for the documentation project ever since I accidentally dropped coffee on my office laptop. And when you are working in BYOD mode, of course you want to take your machine home with you (not to mention that our NBN FTTC link at home is a lot faster than the Trust's ADSL link, so it sometimes makes sense to finish off stuff at home).

Got the dread little orange shield and exclamation mark thing on shutdown on my Thinkpad. And it was a time when I had to shut it down properly.

So I googled, and discovered all about Alt F4 and accessing the full shutdown dialogue.

And it works. Like a dream.

And you can use the same trick on Windows 10, which is kind of useful to know as I've finally bought myself a new Windows 10 laptop ...

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