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Usually, whenever a new feature comes out for Windows, Microsoft advertises it widely in a blog post to let everyone know. Or if they don't, people discover the feature soon after an update. However, a helpful feature sometimes slips through the cracks, only to be unearthed years later.
That was my reaction when I found this obscure Emergency Restart method for Windows 11 last summer, after stumbling across a post on the Sysadmin subreddit. Reddit user '-Steets-' shared the information in 2022, although other commenters claim the method was present on Windows XP, which came out over 20 years ago.
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To access Emergency Restart, press CTRL + ALT + DEL on your Windows PC -- a pretty standard action. However, this time, hold down the CTRL key and click the power button in the bottom-right corner of the screen.
This action leads to a message on screen stating that you're attempting an Emergency Restart, adding "Click OK to immediately restart. Any unsaved data will be lost." The statement concludes, "Use this only as a last resort." Click "OK", and your computer will turn off and back on as normal.
Screenshot by Cesar Cadenas/ZDNET
You might wonder about the difference between this emergency method and a regular restart. The answer goes back to the final term -- "last resort". As BetaNews explained in 2023, the method is "an alternative to a hard reset." It's the closest thing to holding down the on/off button on your PC without actually pressing it.
This emergency restart is useful when your computer has frozen to the point where nothing works, and it doesn't respond to anything except CTRL + ALT + DEL. The method is also helpful on laptops lacking a physical power button.
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