A hidden shutdown screen in Windows 11

Today I am going to show you the hidden disabled shutdown screen of Windows 11. It's been decades since ACPI was integrated into BIOS to help operating systems have better control over hardware. Since that screen is required to notify the user that the system has finished cleaning up and ready for the power to be shut off when there's no Advanced Power Interface to power down automatically for you, it's no longer needed, asides from likely debugging purposes.

Hope you have a great day!

#endermanch #experiments #windows

[DavidWonn]

Fun fact on the Win95 version of the shutdown screen: Many people mistakenly misread it as, "It's NOT safe to turn off your computer."

[pessie]

The well-known phrase 'It is now safe to turn off your computer' was back in the days when you still had to turn off the computer manually. Now that happens automatically when you shut down the computer.

[alikirb]

there's something so unsettling about just seeing the text "it is now safe to turn off your computer" in small text with a black background in modern times

[mcosta]

The Non-ACPI shutdown may still be useful for embedded systems.

My last workplace had one such piece of manufacturing equipment with an embedded Windows system, which was still running Windows XP. As it was powered on and off by a hard switch, the hardware did not support the ACPI shutdown (the best I could tell) and we always saw the XP's shutdown screen when we shut down Windows.

In addition to debuging purposes within Microsoft, I wouldn't put it past embedded equipment manufacturers to be doing the exact same thing today, only now using Windows 10 or 11

[DavidWonn]

The Win95 version of the shutdown screen actually just exits Windows into single DOS mode. In fact, if you started Windows the old way (hit F8 to start up in DOS, then type WIN to launch Windows), then when you select Shut Down, you can actually type DOS commands blindly. I demonstrate the side effects of this in a vid.

[lukeb]

When you shut down your computer and go on a week long vacation later realizing you had this enabled

[rxREDSTONE]

Well yes. That group policy disables ACPI basically. ACPI is used for hardware power management. An OS mainly uses ACPI to shut down or restart. If Windows can't use ACPI at any point, it outputs that screen. Editing group policy just turns off a way for OS to access ACPI. The same thing happens when you disable ACPI Mode in BIOS.
If the ACPI 'device' couldn't shut down a computer for any reason, whether it's an OS being restricted to do this through group policy (which you showed in a video), ACPI Mode being disabled, problem with the ACPI 'device' itself, or hardware problem, and Windows attempts to shut down anyway, it instead outputs that screen.
That It is now safe to turn off your computer. screen, well, as it tells you, your PC is pretty much halted and it's safe to just power off your PC at any way instead of shutting it down. This screen has VGA mode enabled (640x480 resolution, not SVGA!), and that's the UI from ntoskrnl.exe process (open it in ResourceHacker if you don't trust me)

[davide]

One of the interesting things about this screen is that, just like moderns BSODs, it shows up at the native screen resolution if you try it on a real computer
On VMware neither this nor BSODs seem to inherit the resolution, even if you chage the UEFI resolution setting

[dragan]

I remember seeing this screen (the classic orange one) on the win98 laptop I had as a kid. It's cool that it still exists.

[gomango]

The windows95 one looks creepy for some reason, like an anti-piracy screen

[FairPlay]

I think this screen nowadays is more useful for devices which don't have soft power-off, but comply with ACPI in every other way (like a server). Really interesting how Windows 8 doesn't have that screen - makes me wonder if that was added back into Windows 10 in response to people using Windows on systems which can't do soft power (instead relying on a hard power switch).

[Patashu]

Didn't know this was still around. Fascinating! I loved this message as a kid. Just something very... imperious, authoritative about it. The finality of knowing you were finally safe.

[laptech]

@Endermanch I like your videos. It has such good quality. Please continue to make such videos.

[LordSzo]

Those shutdown screens made me terrified.
Which say "It's now safe to turn off your computer."

[Aryx_]

Thank you Endermanch for all the support, i can't explain how much you have saved me, i'm literally in the process of fixing my main laptop because I did a dual boot of Windows 10 and Windows 11 and it broke my laptop from booting into Windows 10 and i couldn't boot into Windows 11 since the boot menu didn't show up to select Windows 11 i couldn't boot into even a OS and i couldn't boot into Windows RE since the F8 screen never shows up, so i had to go get my old laptop and re image the USB Drive to be bootable and once i was in the Windows Indtaller i had to install a driver, once i did i can delete the partition from diskpart then check if the BCD is intact and had only Windows 11 and then i rebooted and then Windows 11 finally booted

[virtual]

"The monsters are gone, you're safe to escape... For now"

[IronPikachu]

I have no idea why, but anything that makes computers not function like normal (even if it is coded into the PC's programing for functions) scare me sometimes, like more of a chill down my spine then a jumpscare designed to scare people (things like the "Blue Screen of Death" sometimes if unexpected, or the "It is now safe to turn off your computer" screen from this video)

[knoxvolpe]

i love the choice you made with the music! ;D

[hacktor_]

2:34 in win 11 (not sure if applies in 10) you'll have to gpupdate /force in order to forcefully update any gp change. prolly windows went the linux way to update current user stuff AFTER a logout

[simon-]

always gotta be the too epic music for windows features topic