How to restart the computer with keyboard keys? The answer to this question wants to know those whose computer mouse or laptop touchpad is not working for some reason.
If your laptop touchpad or computer mouse is not working due to some issue, you don’t have to worry about it.
Apart from the touchpad or mouse problem, restarting your computer once a week is essential to get good performance from your computer.
Reasons Why You Should Restart Your Computer:
When you restart your computer once or twice a week, it helps us flush your computer memory, shutting down or updating your computer programs, which frees up your computer processor.
We all know that restarting our computer is a good idea. But why is it so important? What happens if we don’t restart our computer?
The best way to understand the importance of rebooting your computer is to understand what happens when you don’t.
Whenever you open an application or use a program, it changes your system files. These changes are temporary and are usually only in place for as long as the application needs them.
When you close an application, the operating system should clean up these temporary files, but sometimes they aren’t.
When this happens, these files start to clutter up your hard drive, making it take longer for applications to load or run properly.
Rebooting clears out all those temporary files and returns everything back to normal, including ensuring that any background processes are completed before shutting down for good.
Restarting a computer is different from shutting it down. Restarting closes all open programs but doesn’t shut down the computer completely.
This means that starting your computer again will take longer than normal because it’s loading everything back up again.
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In this article, we will discuss different ways of restarting your computer by using the keyboard keys, and also we will discuss some benefits of restarting your computer. So, let’s start.
Use Alt + F4 Keys To Restart Your Computer:
Pressing the Alt + F4 keys together will close running programs and return you to the desktop.
You can also use it to restart your computer, which is useful if you’ve been working on something for a while and want to clear up your memory.
The Alt + F4 keyboard shortcut is a quick way to restart your computer. It works in almost any version of Windows, including Windows 8, Windows 10, and Windows 7.
To use this shortcut, press and hold down the Alt key on your keyboard, then tap the F4 key. If you use a laptop, you may need to press Fn instead of Alt.
If you’re using a keyboard with a numeric keypad (like on an old-school desktop), press Num Lock first so that the numbers on the pad work like when you type in numbers.
This trick may not work if you have disabled the “Press ALT+F4” option in your PC’s registry or Group Policy Editor.
Use Ctrl + Alt + Del Keys To Restart Your Computer:
Another way of restarting your computer is by using the “Ctrl + Alt + Del” keys at the same time. To restart your computer by using these keys, all you have to do is:
- Hold the Ctrl, Alt, and Del keys simultaneously on your computer or laptop keyboard.
- Hold down these keys for a few seconds until the new windows open.
- Select the power icon and press enter when the new windows open in the bottom right corner.
- You will face three options in the bottom right corner, which are “Sleep,” “Shut Down,” and “Restart.”
- Select the “Restart” option and then press enter.
This method is useful when your computer is locked up and you cannot open your computer’s desktop. By using these shortcut keys, you can easily restart your computer.
Restart Your Computer By Using The Command Prompt:
To restart your computer in Windows 10, you can use the shutdown command. All you have to do is:
- Open a Command Prompt window by pressing the “Win + R” keys simultaneously.
- Once the prompt command window opens, type shutdown /r /o and enter.
- Once you press the enter key, your computer will restart.
This command will restart your computer immediately without closing any open files or windows.
Note: The /r option restarts the computer, while /o tells it to close all running programs first.
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Use the On-Screen Start Button to Restart Your Computer:
This is the easiest way to restart or shut down your computer. This method is useful when your computer is not hanged, your mouse or touchpad is working, and you want to clear some computer memory by restarting your computer.
To restart, all you have to do is:
In the bottom left corner, click on the Windows Icon.
- When you click on the windows icon, a pop-up window will open.
- You will see the three options on there, which are “Sleep,” “Shut Down,” and “Restart.”
- Click on the restart option, and your computer will immediately restart.
Use the Power Button To Restart Your Computer:
This method is useful when your computer or laptop is frozen entirely, and your touchpad and keyboard are not working. This happens when your computer does not get enough power supply to work.
Note: Sometimes restarting your computer in a frozen or hanging situation can turn it back to normal.
So, in a frozen or hanging situation, you can restart your computer using the power button. Follow the steps mentioned below:
- Locate your computer power button on the right side above the keyboard. It might be on the left side of some laptops.
- Hold the power button for a few seconds until your computer shuts off completely.
- Check your computer’s fan; if it’s still working, it is not shut down completely. Wait for a few seconds until the fan stops.
- When you feel your computer’s fan is off and completely shut down, press the power button again to restart your computer.
- After pressing the power button wait for a few seconds to restart your computer.
Above, we have discussed the 5 best ways to restart your computer in the Windows operating system. Now let’s discuss how you can restart your Mac using keyboard shortcuts.
Read More: Why My Laptop Keeps Freezing & Not Responding?
How to Restart Mac With Keyboard Shortcut:
If you’re not a mouse fan and want to restart your Mac with keyboard shortcuts, here are some handy commands you can use.
The easiest way to restart your Mac is by using one of these keyboard shortcuts:
Command + Option + Eject: This will force the computer to restart immediately.
Control + Command + Eject: This will put your computer into Sleep mode. Press any key, and it will wake right up.
Command + Option + Control + Power: This will force a restart like above, except it will also turn off your display (which is handy if you’ve got multiple monitors).
When multiple displays are attached to your Mac, and one goes black, the computer doesn’t automatically turn off the display. Instead, you’ll be prompted to turn off the display or leave it on while you work on other tasks.
Advantages of Restarting Your Computer:
Restarting the computer is a good way to solve problems, and it’s one of the easiest maintenance tasks you can do. Restarting your computer can fix all kinds of problems,
Restarting your computer also has many benefits that you might not know about. So let me share with you some of them:
1. It helps clean up junk files on your hard disk. The most common reason our computers slow down is that they become cluttered with junk files and unnecessary data over time.
And the best way to get rid of these files is by restarting your computer because Windows will automatically clean up all temporary files created during operation, so these files won’t slow down your PC anymore.
2. It helps improve boot times. If you’re using a laptop or desktop computer, then you know how annoying it can be when you turn it off (or put the lid down) after playing a game or watching a movie and then have to wait for 30 seconds before Windows boots up again.
If this happens too often, then consider restarting your machine instead of turning it off because this action will significantly increase the performance of your computer.
3. Restarting your computer will clear your RAM and free up more space. This can be helpful if you are experiencing issues with applications being slow to open or responding slowly once opened.
4. If you’re someone who uses their computer for work purposes and relies on programs like Microsoft Word, Outlook, or Excel, then restarts will save you time when creating documents or emails as they will load faster than usual thanks to the fact that your RAM has been cleared out.
5. It allows all the background tasks (such as virus scans) to complete before you start using your computer again, which reduces the risk of these processes interfering with whatever else you’re doing on your PC.
6. If you’re having problems with an application such as Windows Media Player or Internet Explorer, restarting can solve the problem temporarily by clearing out any temporary files that might be causing issues with your program.
Bottom Line of Restarting Your Computer Using Keyboard Shortcut:
If your touchpad stops working or your computer freezes completely, you can restart your computer by using the keyboard shortcuts or pressing the power button.
After reading this article, we hope that you have got the answer to your question, “How to restart the computer using the keyboard?”. We have discussed the different methods of restarting your computer.
Also, we have discussed why you should restart your computer and the advantages of restarting the computer.
So, to get better performance from your computer, you should restart it once or twice a week apart from the hanging or frozen situation because it helps your computer clear the memory and temp files.
Frequently Asked Questions:
What are the restart shortcut keys in Windows 10?
There are different methods to restart your computer in Windows 10 by using the keyboard short keys, which are mentioned below:
- Use the Alt + F4 keys together to open the windows, which allows you to select the option from Shut down, Sleep, or Restart. After selecting the restart option, hit enter.
- You can use Ctrl + Alt + Del keys to restart your computer in Windows 10.
- Another way of restarting your computer in Windows 10 is by pressing the Shift + Ctrl + Alt + Del keys simultaneously.
What are the restart shortcut keys in Windows 7?
The restart shortcut key in Windows 7 is the same as in Windows Vista, so if you’re a veteran user, you won’t have trouble remembering it. Here’s how to use the restart shortcut key on your keyboard:
- Press and hold down the Ctrl key.
- Press and release the R key (the letter “R”).
- Press both the keys until the “Restarting Computer..” screen displays, then release the keys.
How to restart the computer from Task Manager?
In Windows 10, you can restart your computer from the Task Manager. The Task Manager is a powerful tool that lets you manage processes and services running on your computer. It also has a built-in option to reboot your PC.
To restart your PC from the Task Manager, follow these steps:
Open the Task Manager by pressing Ctrl + Shift + Esc or right-clicking on the taskbar and selecting Task Manager.
Click on More Details at the bottom of the window to make it full-screen.
Right-click on the name of the process you want to end and select End task. When prompted, click the End process tree to stop all related processes from running.
Click Yes when asked if you want to end the process or service.