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I Can't Even Shut Down My PC (Windows 11)
My Windows 11 PC completely refuses to shut down, restart, or go to sleep no matter what I try. Clicking the shutdown button does nothing, running shutdown commands in Command Prompt has no effect, and even holding the physical power button only forces a hard reset instead of a proper shutdown. This started happening after the recent major Windows update, and I've already tried disabling fast startup and running system file checks but nothing fixes it.
1 Reply
That’s a rough one. I’d treat this like either a stuck driver/service or a power-management issue.
First, open Command Prompt as admin and run: powercfg /requests. That can show if a driver or process is blocking sleep/shutdown. Then try a real forced Windows shutdown command: shutdown /s /f /t 0.
If it still hangs, I’d check these next: disable Fast Startup, update chipset/storage/graphics drivers from the PC maker, run sfc /scannow and DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth, and test a clean boot to see if a third-party service is holding shutdown. Since you mentioned it started after a major update, uninstalling the most recent quality/feature update as a test may also tell you a lot.
