shutting down computer

I have Windows XP on my computer. My wife, who is new to computers, turned off the computer by pushing in the power button on the tower (she did not go to Start, Turn off computer). Then when I turned the computer on to see what damage occurred, I discovered that there was no damage at all! When I had Windows 95 and 98 and I turned off the computer without going to Start, Turn off computer, a screen came up telling me to do something and I had to wait 15 minutes to get things going again. My questions are these: Can I turn off my computer in Windows XP by pushing the power button? Why did no damage occur? Thank you.

 

Hello abx,

Go into the power option settings > advanced. The power off button is set to do exactly that. The other choice is hibernate and maybe standby. These options depend more on how new the computer is than OS.

It didn't do any damage because its a defined function.

Regards - Charles