El Capitan: danger of a hard restart?

I did a Time Machine backup, but if I recall, my Finder was already acting oddly. So, that backup is already impaired. I have another one from a few days prior.

But, just doing a hard restart does not mean I automatically must restore, right? That's just the worst case scenario.

Thanks

I assume the change you mean was the removal of that plist file?

I have not been able to reboot, so no.

I am about to hard reboot. Is that my only option?

I can not get to Safe Mode unless I hard restart.

Yes, and it worked!

Yay!

Thanks for the update and Good News!

You could have force quit the finder first.  There are numerous ways to force quit.  A hard restart is basically a force quit of the entire system.