Turning It On — Startup, Login & Shutdown — Handout

Reading material for the module. The module itself is where you practise on a real simulated machine and get marked — this is what to read before, alongside, or afterwards. 9 levels across 4 phases; Levels 1–3 are free and 6 are part of the module purchase.

What this module covers — and what it does not

Covers: every power state a computer can be in; starting one and understanding each screen it shows you; accounts, passwords, PINs and Caps Lock; locking, signing out and switching users; sleep, hibernate and restart; shutting down safely, including the unsaved-work warning and updates; when a forced shutdown is the right answer and what it costs; and the startup and sign-in faults you will actually meet.

The physical machine — cables, the power supply, what a UPS does — belongs to Meet the Computer: Hardware Mastery. That module’s final capstone ends the moment the machine powers on; this module picks up from exactly there.
Using the desktop once you are in — icons, the taskbar, the Start menu as a subject — belongs to Computer, Mouse & Desktop Mastery.
Windows and Task Manager in depth belong to Windows & Multitasking Mastery. Task Manager appears here only because you cannot honestly answer “when should I force the machine off?” without knowing a smaller tool exists.
Passwords as a security subject — choosing strong ones, password managers, phishing — belongs to a later internet-safety module. This module teaches typing one correctly and what to do when you have forgotten it.
BIOS/UEFI setup, boot order, safe mode as a tool and reinstalling an operating system are technician work. They are named so you know they exist and know when to hand over.

Power & Starting Up

Level 1 — Power States & the Power Button

Off, sleep, hibernate, locked, signed out, restart, on — and which button starts what.

A computer is never simply “on” or “off”. It has seven different states, and knowing which one you are in is the difference between losing an afternoon's work and not losing it. OFF — nothing is running, nothing is remembered. SLEEP — the screen is dark but everything you had open is held in memory, ready in a second. HIBERNATE — everything you had open is written to the disk and the machine really switches off. LOCKED — running normally, screen covered, needs your password. SIGNED OUT — your programs are closed but the machine is still on for someone else. RESTART — off and straight back on again in one action. ON — you are working.
Two of those seven are the ones beginners confuse most: LOCKED and SIGNED OUT. Locking is like shutting your office door — everything on your desk stays exactly where it was. Signing out is like clearing your desk and handing the office to someone else. Level 4 makes you do both, on a real machine, and shows you the difference in what survives. For now, just know they are not the same thing.
This is a desktop computer: a tower (the box that does the work), a monitor, and a wall socket. Notice that the tower and the monitor each have their OWN power button, and the wall socket has its own switch. Three separate switches for one computer catches out more beginners than any other single thing. Level 8 has a machine that looks completely dead purely because one of them is off.
The machine is off. Find the computer's power button — the round one on the front of the tower, marked with the ⏻ symbol — and press it once. One short press is the normal way to start a computer. You do not need to hold it, and holding it is a completely different instruction to the machine — Level 7 covers that.
It is starting. Watch the screen for a few seconds — you will see the machine work through several screens before it is ready for you. Level 2 is entirely about what each of those screens is. For now, let it run. When the sign-in screen appears, we will move on.
Let the machine finish starting. Wait until the sign-in screen appears. That took a few seconds here. On a real machine it is anywhere from fifteen seconds to two minutes, and the older or busier the machine, the longer. Waiting is not a fault.
Here is the same machine as a laptop. One unit, one power button — usually above the keyboard, at the top right, sometimes hidden in the corner key of the keyboard itself. A laptop has no separate monitor button and often no wall switch that matters, because it has a battery. That makes a laptop simpler to start and, as Level 5 shows, gives it one extra power state that a desktop does not really have: closing the lid.
One habit worth forming now: SAVE YOUR WORK BEFORE YOU CHANGE POWER STATE. Every single thing that goes wrong in this module — a flat battery, a power cut, a frozen machine, a forced shutdown — only costs you something if there was unsaved work when it happened. Sleep, lock and hibernate all protect your work under normal conditions. None of them protect it against the power going off. Saving does.

Level 2 — Starting the Computer

Self-test, splash, loading, sign-in — what each startup screen actually is, and how long it should take.

Here is a computer that has been correctly assembled and plugged in, and is switched off. If you have done Hardware Mastery, this is the exact machine you built — that module stopped the moment the fans started turning. This one starts there. If you have not done that module, nothing is missing: everything you need is on this screen. The machine is assembled and plugged in; all you have to do is switch it on and watch.
Between pressing the button and being able to type, a computer runs through four distinct stages. Most people never learn what any of them are, which is why a slow start feels like a fault instead of a normal wait. 1. SELF-TEST — the machine checks its own hardware. 2. SPLASH — the maker's logo, while the operating system starts loading. 3. LOADING — the operating system finishes getting ready. 4. SIGN-IN — it asks who you are. You will see all four in a moment.
Press the power button and watch the very first thing that appears. That first screen is the POWER-ON SELF-TEST, or POST. It is not Windows — Windows has not started yet. It is the machine's own firmware, built into the motherboard, checking that the processor, memory and drives are all present and working before it hands over.
Read what is on that self-test screen. It names the machine, counts the memory it found, lists the drive it found, and offers a key you can press to enter Setup. That Setup key (DEL or F2 on most machines) opens the firmware settings — boot order, clock, fan behaviour. It is technician territory and is deliberately not part of this module. If you ever land there by accident, choose “Exit without saving” and the machine will carry on starting normally.
Let it carry on. What appears after the self-test? The SPLASH SCREEN — the maker's logo with a spinner underneath. The self-test has passed and handed control to the operating system, which is now loading itself off the drive. The spinner means work is happening even though nothing on screen is changing.
Keep watching. The third stage. The LOADING screen — “Getting things ready”. The operating system is starting the services, drivers and background programs it needs before it can show you anything you can use. On a machine that has just installed updates this stage can take several minutes, and that is normal.
And the fourth. The SIGN-IN screen. The machine is now fully started and is asking who you are. Everything before this point happens the same way for every user of the machine; everything after it is yours.
How long should all that take? On a modern machine with a solid-state drive, ten to twenty seconds. On an older machine with a spinning hard disk, one to three minutes. After a big update, five minutes or more. This simulation compresses each stage to a second or two so you can practise the sequence repeatedly without waiting. The “Skip the wait” button is there for the same reason. On a real machine, waiting is the correct action — the single most damaging beginner habit is deciding a slow start is a fault and cutting the power.

Level 3 — Logging In

Accounts, passwords, Caps Lock, PINs and biometrics — ending on a real desktop.

This is the sign-in screen. It exists for one reason: a computer can be used by more than one person, and each person gets their own separate space — their own desktop, their own documents, their own settings, their own email. This machine has two accounts on it. Signing in as Paul gives you Paul's desktop and Paul's files. Signing in as Sarah gives you a completely different desktop with none of Paul's things on it. Same computer, two separate worlds.
Click the tile for Paul Bugembe to choose that account. Choosing an account is the first half of signing in. The second half is proving you are that person — which is what the password box that just appeared is for.
Notice the password box shows dots instead of the letters you type. That is deliberate: it stops somebody standing behind you from reading your password over your shoulder. It also means you cannot see your own typing mistakes — which is why the small eye icon at the end of the box exists. Press and hold it to reveal what you have typed. Use it when a password keeps being rejected and you are sure it is right.
Paul's password on this practice machine is Kampala2026 — capital K, the rest lower case, then the year. Type it and sign in. Passwords are case-sensitive: Kampala2026 and kampala2026 are two different passwords as far as the computer is concerned. That single fact explains a very large share of all “my password stopped working” complaints.
You are in. This is the desktop — the finish line for startup, and the starting line for everything else. What all these icons do, how the taskbar works, how to open and arrange windows — that is Computer, Mouse & Desktop Mastery and Windows & Multitasking Mastery. This module's job is getting you here safely and getting you out again safely.
Now the single most common sign-in problem in the world. Look at the sign-in screen: there is a small warning under the password box saying Caps Lock is on. Caps Lock turns every letter you type into a capital. Because the password box shows only dots, you cannot see it happening — you just get told your password is wrong, over and over, and it feels like the computer has forgotten you.
Try to sign in as Paul with Caps Lock still on. Type the password exactly as before and press Sign in — and watch what the machine tells you. The machine received KAMPALA2026, not Kampala2026. Notice the message names Caps Lock specifically. Real sign-in screens do this too, and almost nobody reads it.
Now switch Caps Lock off using the key on the keyboard panel, and sign in properly. That is the whole fix. Before you ever conclude your password is wrong, check three things in this order: Caps Lock, the account you selected, and the keyboard language.
A password is not the only way to prove who you are. Under the password box there is a “Sign-in options” row offering a PIN. A PIN is a short number — usually four to six digits — and here is the part that surprises people: a PIN is not a weaker password. A password works on any machine that account exists on. A PIN works ONLY on this one physical machine. Stealing your PIN is useless to someone on the other side of the world; stealing your password is not. That is why PINs are allowed to be short.
Choose Paul's account, switch the sign-in option to PIN, and sign in with the PIN 4821. Notice it signed you in the instant the fourth digit went in — no Sign in button needed. That is normal PIN behaviour, and it is why a PIN feels so much faster than a password.
Some machines also offer a fingerprint or a face. Those are called biometrics. They are convenient, and they are tied to that one machine exactly like a PIN. Every machine that offers a fingerprint still has a password behind it, and you will be asked for that password after a restart or if the fingerprint reader fails. Never rely on a fingerprint to the point of forgetting the password — that is one of the most common ways people lock themselves out.

Your Session

Level 4 — Lock, Sign Out & Switch User(paid level)

The three commands beginners confuse, done for real — and what survives each one.

You are signed in and working. Notice the Notes window on the desktop with unsaved changes in it — keep an eye on that window through this whole level, because whether it survives is the entire lesson. Three commands look almost identical in the menus and do completely different things: LOCK, SIGN OUT and SWITCH USER. You are about to do all three and watch what happens to that window each time.
Open the Start menu. Lock, Sign out and Switch user all live behind your account picture at the bottom of the Start menu — not behind the Power button, which is a different menu for different things.
Click your account picture at the bottom of the Start menu to open the account menu. Lock, Sign out and Switch user are here, together, because all three are about your SESSION. Sleep, Restart and Shut down are behind the Power button because they are about the MACHINE.
Choose Lock. The screen is now covered by the lock screen. Your session is still running underneath it, untouched. Nothing was closed and nothing was saved — nothing needed to be.
This is the lock screen: a clock, a date, and no information whatsoever about what you were doing. That is the point — somebody walking past your desk learns nothing. Behind it, your programs are still running. A download still downloads. A long calculation still calculates. Locking pauses nothing except your ability to see it.
Unlock it: click the lock screen to raise it, then sign in as Paul with Kampala2026. Look at the desktop — the Notes window is exactly where it was, with its unsaved changes intact. That is what locking protects: everything, at zero cost.
Locking is so useful that it has a keyboard shortcut you should learn by heart. On a real machine it is the Windows key and L together — one second, screen covered, walk away. A web page can never receive the Windows key: Windows itself takes it before any program, including your browser, ever sees it. So this simulation substitutes Alt + L, which behaves identically here. Windows & Multitasking Mastery makes the same substitution for the same honest reason, and says so in the same way. On your real computer, use Windows + L.
Lock the machine with the keyboard: hold Alt and press L. That is the habit worth building. Any time you stand up from a shared computer — even for thirty seconds — Windows + L. It is faster than deciding whether it is worth it.
Unlock again and get back to your desktop. Notes is still open. Locking and unlocking as often as you like costs you nothing.
Now SIGN OUT, which is the one people confuse with locking — and the confusion is expensive. Signing out closes every program you have open and ends your session completely. The machine stays on, ready for the next person, but your desk has been cleared. Watch what happens to the Notes window.
Open the Start menu, open your account menu, and choose Sign out. The machine warned you first — real ones do too — and then closed everything. Look at the sign-in screen: there is no session running behind it now. When you sign back in you will get a fresh, empty desktop.
Sign back in as Paul and look at what you get. The Notes window is gone, and so were its unsaved changes. That is the difference between locking and signing out, in one picture. Locking hides your work. Signing out closes it.
Third command: SWITCH USER. This is for one situation specifically — somebody else needs the computer for a few minutes, and you do not want to close your work to give it to them. Switching user leaves your session running in the background, exactly as if you had locked it, and shows the sign-in screen so the other person can sign into their own account. Two sessions then exist on one machine at the same time.
Start → your account picture → Switch user. Look carefully at the sign-in screen now: under Paul's tile it says “Signed in”. That badge is the visible proof that your session is still alive.
Sign in as Sarah Nakato, whose password is Entebbe77. This is Sarah's desktop — different wallpaper, none of Paul's windows, none of Paul's files. And Paul's session is still running in the background the whole time.
Now hand the machine back. Switch user again, and sign back in as Paul. Paul's Notes window is exactly as he left it, unsaved changes and all. Nothing was closed. That is what switch user is for.
One warning that comes directly from that convenience: a switched-away session is still running, and it still has your unsaved work in it. If somebody then shuts the machine down while you are away, your session goes with it. Windows does warn whoever tries — “someone else is still using this PC” — but people click past warnings. On a shared machine, save your work before you switch away, every time.

Level 5 — Sleep, Hibernate & Restart(paid level)

What each power state actually preserves, closing a laptop lid, and why restarting fixes things.

Level 4 was about your SESSION. This level is about the MACHINE: the three commands behind the Power button in the Start menu — Sleep, Restart and Shut down — plus a fourth, Hibernate, that is often hidden. The Notes window with unsaved changes is open again. Same test as before: watch what survives.
Open the Start menu and click the Power button (⏻), at the bottom right of the menu. This is a different menu from your account picture. Everything here changes the state of the whole computer, not just your session.
Choose Sleep. The screen went dark and almost everything in the machine switched off — except the memory, which is kept powered so that everything you had open is held exactly as it was. That is all sleep is: a machine that is off apart from its memory.
Look at the tower: the power light is now breathing slowly instead of shining steadily. On a laptop it is usually the same — a slow pulse rather than a steady light. That pulse is how you tell “asleep” from “off” across the room. A sleeping desktop uses a couple of watts; a sleeping laptop will typically last one to three days on battery. It is designed for minutes and hours — lunch, a meeting, overnight — not for a week.
Wake it up. On a real machine you press a key, move the mouse, or tap the power button once. Do it here. Notice how fast that was — no self-test, no splash, no loading. Nothing had to load, because nothing had been unloaded. That is the entire attraction of sleep.
Sign back in and check your work. Notes is exactly as you left it, unsaved changes and all. Waking from sleep still asks for your password — sleep is not a security hole. And notice it went to the sign-in screen, not straight to the desktop.
The honest limitation of sleep: it needs power. Your work is being held in memory, and memory forgets everything the instant it loses electricity. So if a sleeping desktop loses mains power — a power cut, someone switching the socket off, a tripped breaker — or a sleeping laptop's battery runs flat, everything unsaved is gone, exactly as if you had pulled the plug while working. In a place with unreliable mains, that is not a rare edge case; it is a weekly event.
HIBERNATE solves that. It writes everything currently in memory onto the hard disk, then switches the machine completely off — no power at all. Turn it back on and it reads all of that back and puts you exactly where you were. Slower than waking from sleep, much faster than a fresh start, and it survives a power cut because nothing is being held in memory. The trade-off: it needs several gigabytes of disk space, and it is hidden or switched off by default on many machines, so you cannot rely on finding it.
On a laptop there is a fourth way to do all this: closing the lid. By default, closing the lid puts the laptop to sleep. “By default” is doing real work in that sentence. The lid action is a setting, and on different machines it is set to sleep, to hibernate, to shut down, or to do nothing at all. Never assume closing the lid saved anything — it does not save, on any setting.
Close the laptop lid. Asleep, exactly as if you had chosen Sleep from the menu. The important part is what did NOT happen: your unsaved document was not saved. Closing a lid is a power command, never a save command.
Open it again and sign back in. Same as waking from sleep. And a real warning worth knowing: a laptop that sleeps in a closed bag can occasionally wake up in there, and then it is running with no airflow. If a bag is unexpectedly hot, that is what happened. For travel, shut down or hibernate rather than sleep.
Now RESTART, which is the most misunderstood of the three. Restart is not “shut down, then start”. It is its own single command that always fully clears the machine and starts it again. That distinction matters because on modern Windows, “Shut down” does NOT fully clear the machine — it saves part of the system state to disk so the next start is faster. Restart does not do that. Which is why “have you restarted it?” fixes things that shutting down and starting again does not.
Restart the machine: Start → Power → Restart. Watch what it does — it closes everything, powers down, and comes straight back through the self-test, the splash and the loading screen without you touching the power button. And it did all of that without asking whether you meant it, so make sure your work is saved first.
Let it come all the way back to the sign-in screen. A full startup sequence — self-test, splash, loading — because a restart genuinely turns the machine off and on again. Compare that with waking from sleep, which showed none of it.
Sign in and see what happened to your work. The Notes window is gone. A restart closes everything, exactly like shutting down. Anything unsaved when you clicked Restart was lost — and unlike shutting down, Restart often does not stop to ask.

Ending Safely

Level 6 — Shutting Down Safely(paid level)

The correct route, the unsaved-work dialog, updates on shutdown, and the right order for the desk.

Shutting down properly is not a formality. Between clicking Shut down and the power actually going off, the machine does real work: it asks every open program to finish and close, flushes everything waiting to be written to disk, closes the file system cleanly and records that it stopped tidily. Cutting the power skips all of it. That is why “just hold the button” is a different action, not a faster version of the same action.
Shut the machine down the correct way: Start → Power → Shut down. That is the route on every version of Windows. Three clicks, and the machine does everything above before the power goes off.
Read the dialog that appeared. The machine is not refusing — it is telling you something you genuinely need to know: a program has unsaved changes and is holding up the shutdown. “Shut down anyway” throws those changes away. “Cancel” takes you back so you can save. Real machines put those two buttons side by side and people click the wrong one constantly, because they read the dialog as an obstacle rather than as information.
Cancel the shutdown so you can go back and save. Cancel is almost always the right button on that dialog. The machine has just told you something is unsaved; thirty seconds of saving is cheaper than losing it.
Save the work: the Save button is at the bottom of the Notes window. The “● Unsaved changes” marker has become “All changes saved”. That marker is on almost every real program somewhere, and it is worth learning to glance at it.
Now shut down properly. This time the shutdown ran straight through with no dialog at all, because there was nothing unsaved to warn you about. That silence is what a correct shutdown looks like.
Let it finish switching off. The power light is out, the fans have stopped and the screen is dark. That is genuinely off — no power being used, nothing in memory.
On a desktop there is one more step people forget: the monitor has its own power button and does not switch off with the computer. Turning it off saves electricity and is polite in a shared office. It is optional, unlike the shutdown itself. If your machine is on a UPS or an extension board with a switch, that goes off LAST — after the computer has finished shutting down, never before. Switching off the board while the machine is still writing to disk is a forced shutdown in disguise.
Switch the monitor off. Notice the machine itself was already off before you did that — that is the correct order. Computer first, monitor second, wall switch last.
Back on the desktop, and this time something has changed: the Power menu now offers “Update and shut down” as well as “Shut down”. Windows has downloaded updates and is waiting for a convenient moment to install them. Choosing the update option is the right thing to do when you have the time. It installs security fixes you genuinely need. What you must not do is start it and then cut the power partway through.
Choose Update and shut down. Read the screen: “Working on updates — do not turn off your computer.” That instruction is not decoration. The machine is replacing system files right now, and an interrupted replacement leaves a file half-old and half-new.
Let the update finish. Do not touch anything. Real updates can sit on that screen for twenty minutes or more, sometimes appearing frozen at a number that does not move. Waiting is the correct action every time.

Level 7 — When It Freezes(paid level)

One frozen program or a frozen machine — Task Manager, waiting, and the forced shutdown done right.

Sometimes the correct shutdown is not available, because the machine has stopped responding. This level is about telling the difference between a machine that is busy, a program that has frozen, and a machine that is genuinely dead — and about the one situation where holding the power button is the RIGHT answer rather than the lazy one. Look at the Notes window: its title now says “(Not Responding)” and the whole window has gone pale. That is Windows telling you that this program has stopped answering.
Click on the frozen Notes window and see what happens. Nothing. No cursor, no reaction, and the pale wash over the window is Windows drawing a still picture of it because the program is not drawing itself any more. A program that does not respond to a click is the definition of frozen.
Now the critical test, and the one almost everybody skips: is the REST of the machine still alive? Open the Start menu. The Start menu opened normally. So the computer is fine — only one program has frozen. That completely changes what you should do: there is no reason at all to switch the whole machine off.
That is the single most useful distinction in this whole module. ONE PROGRAM FROZEN: everything else works, so close that program and carry on. THE WHOLE MACHINE FROZEN: nothing responds — not the Start menu, not the clock, not the mouse pointer. Before you conclude the whole machine is frozen, wait. Two minutes at least, five if it was doing something heavy. A machine that is simply very busy looks exactly like a frozen one, and comes back on its own.
For one frozen program, the tool is Task Manager — a list of everything running, with the ability to force one entry to close. Task Manager belongs properly to Windows & Multitasking Mastery, which teaches it in depth. It appears here because you cannot honestly answer “when should I force the machine off?” without knowing that a much smaller hammer exists. On a real machine, Ctrl + Shift + Esc opens it directly; right-clicking the taskbar also works, and that is the route used here.
Right-click an empty part of the taskbar and choose Task Manager. There is the list. Notes is marked “Not responding”; everything else is “Running”. This is the evidence, not a guess — you can now see exactly which program is the problem.
Select the Notes entry and click End task. Notes has closed, and everything else is untouched. You just lost whatever was unsaved in that one program — and saved everything in every other program, which a forced shutdown would have taken as well.
Now the harder case. Imagine the same machine, but the Start menu will not open, the clock has stopped changing, and the pointer does not move at all. You have waited five minutes. Nothing. This is the only situation in which forcing the machine off is the correct professional answer. It is a last resort, not a shortcut — but a last resort is still a resort, and refusing to use it leaves you staring at a dead screen forever.
A forced shutdown means holding the power button down for about five seconds until the machine cuts out. It is a hardware instruction — the power button is wired to force the power off if it is held, no matter what the software is doing. What it costs, honestly: anything unsaved in any program is gone; anything half-written to disk stays half-written; and the machine records that it stopped incorrectly, so the next start runs a check. It is not usually catastrophic. It is not free either.
Try a NORMAL press on the power button of this frozen machine first — press it once and let go. A short press asks the software to shut down politely. The software is frozen, so nobody answers. This is why people conclude the power button is broken: it is working perfectly, and the thing it is talking to is not listening.
Now do it properly: press the power button and HOLD it down. Do not let go until the machine cuts out — about five seconds on a real machine. That is a forced shutdown, done correctly. Notice you had to hold it deliberately — that length is intentional, so it cannot happen by accident.
Now start it again and watch what is different about this start. A recovery check — “Windows did not shut down correctly”, followed by the machine checking its own disk. That extra screen is the bill for the forced shutdown, and it is why forcing is a last resort rather than a routine.
Let it finish the check and reach the sign-in screen. It recovered. That is the usual outcome — the file system is designed to survive this. But “usually survives” is not “no consequences”, and a machine forced off repeatedly will eventually lose something that matters.

When It Goes Wrong

Level 8 — Startup & Login Problems(paid level)

Four real faults fixed on the bench: dead machine, black screen, stuck loading, and sign-in failures.

Four real faults, fixed on this bench rather than described. First: “I press the button and absolutely nothing happens — no lights, no fan, no sound.” “Nothing at all” is a very specific symptom and it is good news, because it narrows the problem enormously. No lights and no fan means no electricity is reaching the machine. That is almost never the computer's fault.
Confirm the symptom for yourself: press the power button and watch. Completely dead — no light on the tower, no fan, nothing on the monitor. Now work outwards from the machine towards the wall.
Check the power chain: is the wall socket actually switched on? Switch it on. That was it. A switched-off socket, a switch on an extension board, a tripped breaker or a cable pushed half out by a cleaner — in that order, those are the commonest causes of a completely dead computer.
Now start it. Working. If switching the socket on had NOT fixed it, the next checks are the cable at both ends and the power supply itself — and those are Hardware Mastery's territory, which covers the cables, the power supply and what a UPS does.
Second fault, and the one that generates the most unnecessary call-outs: “The computer is dead, the screen is completely black.” Look and listen before you touch anything. There is a light on the tower and the fan is turning. The computer is not dead — it is running perfectly. Only the picture is missing.
Fix it: give the monitor its own power. The monitor was switched off. It has its own button, its own power lead and its own light, and it is switched entirely separately from the computer. “Black screen” and “dead computer” are different problems.
If the monitor is on and you get “No Signal” instead of black, that is a different message with a different meaning: the monitor is working and is telling you it is receiving nothing. That points at the video cable or the computer's graphics output, which Hardware Mastery covers in full — including a fault bench where you fix exactly that. The key idea to carry away: a monitor with its own message on screen is a working monitor.
Third fault: “It has been sitting on this spinning circle for over twenty minutes and the number has not moved.” This is the hardest one to judge, because a healthy machine and a stuck machine look identical. There is no way to tell from the screen. What you have instead is a procedure.
The tools a technician reaches for at that point are Startup Repair, safe mode and system restore — all reached from Windows' own recovery menu, which appears automatically after a few failed starts. This module names them deliberately so you know they exist and know they are not something to experiment with on a machine holding work you cannot lose. Knowing when to stop is a real skill, and it is part of the syllabus.
Fourth fault: sign-in problems. There are only four common ones, and three have instant fixes. 1. Caps Lock — look for the warning, press the key. 2. The wrong account — you typed your password into somebody else's tile. 3. The wrong keyboard layout — rarer, but it turns your symbols into different symbols. 4. You genuinely do not know the password. Only the fourth is a real problem.
Diagnose and fix this one: Caps Lock is on. Get Paul signed in. One key. This is the single most common sign-in failure there is, and the sign-in screen tells you about it if you read it.
Now the second one, deliberately: select SARAH's tile and type PAUL's password, Kampala2026. Watch what the machine says. “The password is incorrect” — and it is, for that account. The password was perfectly correct; it was aimed at the wrong person. On a shared machine, always check whose name is under the box before you blame the password.
Correct it: sign in as the right person with the right password. Right account, right password. Two things have to match, and “my password does not work” only checks one of them.
And the fourth: you have genuinely forgotten the password. Here are your real options, honestly, in the order they apply. If it is a MICROSOFT ACCOUNT (you sign in with an email address): reset it at microsoft.com from your phone, then sign in on the computer — you may need the internet for the first sign-in afterwards. If it is a LOCAL ACCOUNT with security questions set: answer them at the sign-in screen. If it is a WORK OR SCHOOL machine: the administrator resets it — that is exactly what an administrator is for. If it is a local account with no questions set and no other administrator: there is no polite recovery. Your files still exist and can be copied off by a technician, but the account itself is not getting unlocked, and anything encrypted with it is gone.
One last diagnostic habit worth more than any individual fix: WHAT CHANGED? A machine that worked yesterday and does not today has almost always had something change — a cable moved, an update installed, a program added, the power supply switched. Asking “what is different since it last worked?” finds the cause far more often than working through a list of possible faults, and it costs nothing.

Level 9 — The Full Practical: A Whole Day(paid level)

Cold machine to correct shutdown, in one continuous run. Eighteen scored tasks, pass mark 14.

The final practical. One machine, one continuous day, no resets: a cold dark computer at eight in the morning, and a correctly switched-off one at five in the evening, with everything in between. Every task from here is a single attempt and is scored. If a task goes wrong the machine will be put right for you and the day carries on — you lose that mark, not the exam. Pass mark is 14 out of 18.
17:04. The machine is off, the monitor is off, the updates are installed and nothing was lost all day. That is the whole subject: get in safely, stay in control of which state the machine is in, and get out cleanly. You started this module with a dark, silent computer — the exact machine Hardware Mastery's build capstone hands over — and you can now take it from that state through a complete working day and back again.

Reference 1 — The eight power states

State	What is running	What survives	Use it when
On	Everything.	—	You are working.
Locked	Everything — only the screen is covered.	Every open program, exactly as it was. Downloads keep downloading.	You stand up from a shared machine, even for thirty seconds.
Signed out	The machine, but none of your programs.	Nothing of yours — everything was closed.	You have finished and somebody else needs the machine now.
Switched user	Your session AND the other person's, at the same time.	Everything you had open, held in the background.	Somebody needs their own account for a few minutes.
Sleep	Only the memory, kept powered.	Everything — UNLESS the power goes off or the battery runs flat, and then nothing.	Minutes or hours: lunch, a meeting, overnight.
Hibernate	Nothing — the machine is genuinely off.	Everything, because it was written to the disk first. Survives a power cut.	A long break on battery, or travelling with work open. Often hidden by default.
Restart	Off and straight back on, in one action.	Nothing was kept — everything closed. Often without asking.	After an update or an install, or to clear a machine that is misbehaving.
Off	Nothing. No electricity used.	Only what you saved.	The end of the day, or any absence of more than a few hours.

The one habit worth more than this whole table: save your work before you change power state. Everything that goes wrong in this subject — a flat battery, a power cut, a freeze, a forced shutdown — only costs you something if there was unsaved work when it happened.

Reference 2 — The four startup stages

1. Self-test (POST) — typically 1–5 seconds: The machine's own firmware, built into the motherboard, checking the processor, memory and drives. This is NOT the operating system — it runs even on a machine with no operating system at all. Offers a key (usually DEL or F2) to enter Setup.
2. Splash — typically 2–15 seconds: The maker's logo with a spinner. The self-test passed and the operating system is now loading itself off the drive. A moving spinner means work is happening even when nothing else changes.
3. Loading — typically 5 seconds – several minutes: “Getting things ready.” The operating system is starting the services, drivers and background programs it needs. After a big update this stage can take several minutes with no visible progress.
4. Sign-in — typically waits for you: The machine is fully started and is asking who you are. Everything before this point is the same for every user of the machine; everything after it is yours.

The single most damaging beginner habit is deciding that a slow start is a fault and cutting the power. Waiting is the correct action.

Reference 3 — Lock vs. sign out vs. switch user

Lock — like shutting your office door. Nothing closes, nothing saves, one keystroke to do and one password to undo. Your downloads keep running. Windows + L.
Sign out — like clearing your desk and handing the office over. Every program closes. Anything unsaved is lost.
Switch user — your session keeps running in the background while somebody else uses their own account. Look for the “Signed in” badge under your tile. Save first: if anyone shuts the machine down while you are away, your session goes with it.

All three live behind your account picture at the bottom of the Start menu, because all three are about your SESSION. Sleep, Restart and Shut down live behind the Power button, because those are about the MACHINE.

Reference 4 — Shutting down properly

Save your work.
Start → Power (⏻) → Shut down. If updates are waiting and you have time, “Update and shut down”.
If a dialog says a program is preventing shutdown, Cancel is almost always the right button — the machine has just told you something is unsaved.
Wait for the screen to go dark and the power light to go out.
Then the monitor’s own power button, and only then the extension board or wall switch.

Why it matters: between clicking Shut down and the power going off, the machine asks every program to close, finishes everything waiting to be written to disk, closes the file system cleanly, and records that it stopped tidily. Cutting the power skips all of it. Most of the time that does no visible harm, which is exactly why the habit spreads — the damage is occasional and invisible until the day a file will not open. “Working on updates — do not turn off your computer” is not decoration: system files are being replaced at that moment, and interrupting is one of the few things that genuinely can leave a machine unable to start.

Reference 5 — When it freezes

Is it one program, or the whole machine?: Try the Start menu and watch the clock. If they work, only one program has frozen and there is no reason at all to switch the machine off.
Have you waited?: At least two minutes, five if it was doing something heavy. A very busy machine looks exactly like a frozen one and comes back on its own.
One program frozen — what do I do?: Task Manager (right-click the taskbar, or Ctrl + Shift + Esc), select the entry marked “Not responding”, End task. You lose what was unsaved in that one program and keep everything else.
Everything frozen and I have waited — what do I do?: Press and HOLD the power button for about five seconds until the machine cuts out. This is a last resort, and a last resort is still a resort.
Why does a short press do nothing?: A short press is a polite request to the software, and the software has stopped answering. The button is working; the thing it is talking to is not.
What does a forced shutdown actually cost?: Unsaved work in every program is gone; anything half-written to disk stays half-written; and the next start runs a recovery check. It is not usually catastrophic. It is not free either. Doing it in the middle of an update is the one case that genuinely can leave a machine unable to start.

Reference 6 — Startup problems

Symptom	What it means	Do this
Nothing at all — no lights, no fan, no sound.	No electricity is reaching the machine. Almost never the computer's fault.	Check, in order: the wall switch, the extension board's switch, the breaker, and the power cable at BOTH ends. Then the power supply itself (Hardware Mastery).
Black screen, but the tower's light is on and the fan is turning.	The computer is running perfectly. Only the picture is missing.	The monitor has its OWN power button, its own cable and its own light. Switch it on.
The monitor shows “No Signal”.	The monitor is working and is telling you it is receiving nothing.	Check the video cable at both ends and which socket it is in — Hardware Mastery covers this on a bench.
Stuck on the loading screen.	Usually an update being applied, which genuinely can take half an hour with no movement.	Wait — at least thirty minutes if updates were installed recently. If genuinely stuck, force ONE restart. If it sticks again, get technical help; do not keep forcing it.
“Windows did not shut down correctly.”	The machine was forced off, lost power, or crashed. It is now checking its own disk.	Let the check finish. Then ask why: a forced shutdown, a power cut, or a fault worth investigating.
It worked yesterday and does not today.	Something changed.	Ask “what is different since it last worked?” — a cable moved, an update installed, a program added, a socket switched. This finds the cause faster than working through a list of faults.

Reference 7 — Sign-in problems

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
“The password is incorrect”, and you are sure it is right.	Caps Lock. Passwords are case-sensitive, and the box shows dots so you cannot see it happening.	Look for the Caps Lock warning under the box, press the key, try again. Check this FIRST, every time.
The password is correct but still rejected on a shared machine.	You typed it into somebody else's tile.	Read the name under the password box. Go back and pick your own account.
Symbols come out as different symbols.	The keyboard layout has been switched (there is usually a small language code near the clock).	Switch the layout back, or use the eye icon to reveal what you have actually typed.
“Your account has been locked. Try again in 15 minutes.”	Too many failed attempts. This is a security feature, not an attack.	Wait it out. Then check Caps Lock and the account tile before typing again.
You have genuinely forgotten it — and you sign in with an EMAIL ADDRESS.	It is an online account, so it does not live only on that machine.	Reset it from another device on the provider's website, then sign in on the computer.
You have forgotten it — LOCAL account, on a work or school machine.	The machine has an administrator.	Ask them to reset it. That is exactly what an administrator is for.
You have forgotten it — LOCAL account, no security questions, no other administrator.	There is nothing holding a recovery route.	Honestly: there is no ordinary way back into that account. Your files can usually still be copied off by a technician, but anything encrypted with that account is gone. This is why security questions are worth setting.

Reference 8 — Passwords, PINs and accounts

An account is an identity, not a door key. Signing in as somebody else means everything you do is recorded as them, and they can no longer prove it was not them. That is why sharing a password is forbidden in every workplace, even between people who trust each other completely.
Passwords are case-sensitive. “Kampala2026” and “kampala2026” are two different passwords. This one fact explains a very large share of all sign-in failures.
A PIN is not a weaker password. A password works on any machine your account exists on; a PIN works only on that one physical machine. Stealing a PIN is useless to somebody far away, which is why it is allowed to be short.
A fingerprint or face is tied to one machine too — and there is always a password behind it, which you will be asked for after a restart. Never let the fingerprint make you forget the password.
The eye icon at the end of a password box reveals what you have actually typed. Use it when a password keeps being rejected and you are sure it is right.

Reference 9 — Choosing the right state, quickly

Away for a few minutes, shared machine → Lock (Windows + L).
Away for an hour, own machine, work open → Save, then lock.
Somebody else needs the machine for a few minutes → Switch user.
You have finished and somebody is waiting → Sign out.
Long meeting, laptop on battery, work open → Save, then shut down (or hibernate).
End of the day, or the weekend → Shut down.
After an update or an install, or the machine is misbehaving → Restart.

Completing a level’s practical exam earns a Skill Badge — this is skill-building and self-assessment, not a certification or formal qualification.