The key to shutting down your Windows 7 computer is in the Start menu. Click the Start button in Windows 7 and you'll see, among other items, the shutdown button on the lower right-hand side.

Breaking news: I am running Windows 7 Home Premium on a laptop, and started experiencing this issue ("You don't have permission to shut down this computer.") after the January Patch Tuesday updates.

For years, shutting down Windows has been a matter of clicking Start and then Shut Down (or Restart). With Windows 8, Microsoft essentially doesn't want you to shut down your PC.

Step 3: Press Alt + F4.This should immediately open a shutdown menu on your PC. If you are interested in shutting down Windows 10 as quickly as possible with your keyboard, then just hit the Enter ...

“In older versions of Windows, both ‘shut down’ and ‘restart’ did exactly the same thing in terms of shutting down processes. However, since Windows 8, a new feature called Fast Startup ...