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Why do computers/phones have a restart option along with the power off option?

1 points by saonnet ↗ HN
Couldn't users just turn off their computers(via the shutdown option) and use the physical button to turn it on again ? Why did they added an extra button ? It's not saving too much time or anything.

16 comments

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mikewarot
If every update required a manual power cycle, half the Internet would be off right now.

Scratch that, almost all of the internet would be off, most waiting for one of the far too few technical staff to cycle it back on manually.

Our phones wouldn't wake use up in the morning, as they too would be off.

PeterStuer
On Windows restart is not the same as shutdown/power on. I had a pc thar could not restart, but could boot after shutdown.
apothegm
Yes, we used to do that, back in the dinosaur (286-486, DOS and Win3.1) days.

“Have you tried turning it off and then on again” became such a common response to Windows 95+ being kind of crap that they started to include the option for convenience.

jjcob
Nah, back in those days PCs even had a RESET button. So even when it was trivial to turn it off and on again, there was still a designated button to restart the computer.
apothegm
Not the ones we had at my school and home in the 80s. Nor the outdated DOS machine I inherited to write school essays on when my dad got a new Dell with Windows 95. Just a power button or switch, depending on the model.
dlcarrier
Power-up is hard on hardware, but restarting is often needed for software reasons, so the software makes it an option.
hulitu
> Why do computers/phones have a restart

Kids those days. There is no problem in Windows (and lately, Android) that a restart cannot fix.

al_borland
Restarting is more common than powering off.
BorisMelnik
this is kind of an lmgtfy quesation not a new thread on HN question