You have more people using one computer and you don't want them to be able to shut it down using a shutdown button on Windows logon screen, this is how you remove it.
Some installations or settings changes require you to restart your computer. In most cases you don't need to actually reboot it, you only need to restart the explorer.exe process.
In this day of age, it's very practical to have a Windows 7 installation on your USB key, for many netbooks and devices don't come with CD/DVD drives anymore.
Explorer in Windows 8 is quite updated and it is as much as possible adapted to the user. They have also added the option to quickly access the Command Prompt terminal window.