Martha -

As indicated by BobL, your Windows computer generally won't have a problem rebooting after a Forced Shutdown or power loss.

In most cases you can use the power switch to "force OFF" by holding it down for a few seconds (up to 10 or 15 seconds for some common computers). This will give you a "logical shutdown" that won't save open documents, but there's sometimes enough pause between the order to shut down and the actual removal of power to let the machine do at least some "trash clearing," mainly by terminating any process that happens to be in the middle of writing to the hard drive.

(If the computer has started writing something, it may "throw a few bits" at the Hard Drive, and if the drive begins to slow down while there's still "incoming" of course they might land in the wrong places. This can happen with ANY OS, regardless of design flaws.)

If you just pull the plug, or if power fails abruptly, everything stops, and there's a slightly higher chance of corrupting some file or another.

Most of the files most likely to be damaged get rewritten regularly, and will "fix themselves" (at least in Windows) and corruption from this kind of shutdown is actually very rare.

After using either method, holding down the switch button (preferred) or pulling the plug (rarely, if ever really required), the computer will normally inform you that the shutdown was abnormal the next time you turn on, and will ask if you want a normal boot or a safe boot. The options shown for "Safe Boot" can vary with the particular manufacturer or with OS version. Ordinarily just "Start Windows Normally" works just fine.

I have had to "hold the button" a quite a few times when things lock up, but only had to "unplug" power once, on an archaic laptop that wouldn't even respond to the button. Unplugging the AC power doesn't stop things since there's a battery in most laptops, so that one time I had to "pull the battery" too. Even that laptop never failed to respond to the "button" any time after that one incident.

Reference: A "forced shutdown" is sometimes referred to as a "BRS," in memory of the BIG RED SWITCH that was on all early mainframe computers. The lockup that forces you to "BRS" may in similarly archaic terms be called an ABEND (Abnormal End of Process). Only a few really old codgers probably remember those now, but knowing them might allow you to avoid stirring up some senile ol' fart someday.

John