Restart or Shut Down Windows 8 with a Keyboard Shortcut

Windows 8's start menu interferes with the old, convenient method of using keyboard shortcuts (via the Windows key) to quickly restart or shut down your machine. Here's a little trick that sort of brings back that time saver.

As How-To Geek points out, all you need to do is pull up the power tools menu with WIN + X (one of the best keyboard shortcuts in Windows 8), then U and the underlined letter for the shut down option of your choice. 

Alternatively, once you're on the desktop (WIN + D), hit Alt+F4 to bring up the shut down menu, but the above option is quicker.

Source: http://goo.gl/hvdkYD