Well what I want to know is: Will doing a manual shut down hurt your computer? Manual shut down as in not going to (This is on Windows XP) start menu,turn off your computer, and hit turn off. Some people I have talked to say it hurts your computer when you do a manual shut down.

Does doing a manual shut down hurt your computer?

In my experience, it has never physically hurt my computer by manually turning off my computer. The only thing you have to be concerned about is what type of programs are running at the time your shutting it down. If you do a force shutdown via holding the power button down, programs that are running won't save any current data that they have. So lets say your running something that keeps logs and only saves the logs when the program is terminated. When you do a force shutdown, those logs won't be saved.

I'm not possitive about information not saving when you press the power button, like if your computer is running fine and you press the button. So correct me if I'm wrong. But I know for sure that when you hold the power button in for the 3-4 seconds, nothing saves.... especially when your computer is frozen.

And in addition, the System should want to do a disk check on restart because the machine isn't smart enough to know the switch was hit instead of the disk crashing. I don't know about you guys, but if these machines were any good, they would be able to tell the difference.

Reminds me of a problem we used to have on a system at a Compnay I once worked at. They had an H-P 3000 machine. At the time it was pretty darned fancy. I think it had a 16 bit processor. It needed its own "room" to set up because the 400 Meg disk drives were the size of a school desk, only taller. Makes me laugh when I see the technology available today and think back to those times... but I digress... Anyway, they were prone to overheating and the system would shutdown, a bunch of data would have to be re-entered just like xjedix explained, until someone smarter than the average toilet seat (an Systems Engineer) came up with an idea to hook a thermostat to the thing and when it got too hot, the power supply would shut the machine down. Seemed that the machine handled power outage better than a heat shutdown, so the data all got saved on a Power off. Maybe only the last entry would have to be re-done. That's my story for the day.

So aside from a disk check on start-up, I don't think the machine would be any worse for wear.

i think that shuting it down manually as you call it would be more benefical than hardbooting it, because

A it gives all the programs a chance to shut down propperly

and

B it's not overloading the system with to many commands..but i might if you have allot of things running you know like saying to one person (shut yahoo down! now msn! not ie! now firefox! lol) just another ceazy thought by the one and only me..but i alternate alllot of the times..if im in a hurry to get my computer back on i will hardboot it, wait 10 seconds then turn it back on, it goes faster than waiting for windows to save settingss etc..

it doesnt really hurt your pc but it s not a good habbit to get into beause sometimes files that where running werent shut down right so they might get messed up but its highly unlikly it will mess up your pc but dont use it much

Turning Off the Power from the mainspower suply In my expirience...it has corrupted a few of my files in system32 , i would highly reccomend not doin git unless you really have to..but i dont think the 7 second hold down on the power button..the only problem i have encountered in that is that i was running music on WMP ..and i held in the power button..when i started it up it said that windows media player had damaged profiles or somthing like that..
but that aint that bad...is it ?
I preffer going to Start => Shut Down..Because then you know that your pc is definatly closing down everything.

hi
i've got a slightly different opinion. Consider an airconditioner, when the compresor is on if you switch it off probably you could see a sprak build up in between the switch, well its because the airconditioner was workin in full load and thus drawing high current and that when it stops suddenly sparks are produced. Same is the case with pcs, when you turn off the pc using the power button the pc actually might've been workin in full power and a sudden stop could potentially damage smps/hdd/cd-dvd etc....
on the other hand when you turn off your pc from the start menu each and every devices are switched off one by one and finally the main supply is cut off, now that does'nt cause any damage.

I never turn it off manually, I always go to start > turn off, except if the computer stops responding, and I have to turn it off manually.

I've also heard that it might hurt the computer / components, but I really don't know anything...

I've experienced many problems due to manual shutdown of my system. So i'd say u not to do so because , most of the software and the OS store important and critical data store them in the Physical Memory and store them in the hard disk only during the system shutdown or when the application is properly closed. So if u perform a manual sutdown those data will be lost and when the system is booted or the software is loaded after such a process, it may crash or may not work properly if the required data is not available in the hard disk.

So pal it would be better if u avoid doing a manual shutdown and keep it as an option only when the system is struck