is it sooo bad that sometimes, when i just don't want to wait for my laptop to shut down, i press and hold the power button till it turns off?

It's not really good practice - you could kill your hard drive if it regularly doesn't power down in the usual way [i.e it parks the drive heads]. Particularly if it's a laptop with a Hitachi drive. The last Hitachi drive lasted me 8 months, and I hope the one I have now will keep going for at least 12, or before the warranty is up.

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Bypassing the normal shutdown prevents the OS from properly logging all events, setting certain flags in specific files and generally fragmenting the OS. If the flags are not set properly, windows will initiate disk scans, and alert you that it was not shut down properly. There is much more going on than just cutting power, preparing the software and hardware allows the devices to work most effectively for startup, running, and long life.

Can you bypass it if there is a problem, Sure, that is why it was included. Should you make a regular habit? NO. Should you just throw your car into park while driving at 80kph, just because you are in a hurry to get out? Absolutely Not, you will destroy your transmission. That is NOT how the car was designed to work. Same goes for your computer. There are reasons for the design. Taking a few extra seconds (possibly a minute or two) will not kill you. If it does, you'll probably not notice

Since it's a laptop, as long as it isn't set to go into standby when the lid is closed [Why they thought that would be a great default setting, I'll never know] then you can just shut the lid and leave it to shut down. If you want to disconnect it from the AC, the minute or two it takes for a shut down will be nothing on the battery.

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I would recommend doing it... But, I gotta admit, I do it sometimes too...

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Great Analogy! Thanx

I've lost files doing that. I don't think its a good idea.

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It's not good practice at all, but I have to do it sometimes because my freakin computer "half-freezes" and nobody can figure out what in the blue hell is wrong with it.

Half-freeze: A freeze where you can still do certain actions such as "alt+tab" and they work but your mouse doesn't do jack and you can't open up the task manager...a half freeze. That requires me to hold the power button until it turns off.

Unless it's a "need" situation, don't do it. Though if you're just antsy about it turning off..just wait the time, it doesn't take too long...

I only do it when the system Locks up solid

yea thats normally what i do or when im playing a game and it locks up i shut it down by the button

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