Fast Startup - Turn On or Off in Windows 8

How to Turn "Fast Startup" On or Off for a Hybrid Boot in Windows 8 and 8.1​

Fast Startup (aka: hybrid boot or hybrid Shutdown) is a new feature in Windows 8 to help your PC start up faster after shutting down. When turned on, Windows 8 does this by using a hybrid shutdown (a partial hibernate) method that saves only the kernal session and device drivers (system information) to the hibernate (hiberfil.sys) file on disk instead of closing it when you shut down your PC. This also makes the hiberfil.sys file to be much smaller than what hibernate would use (often 4GB or more). When you start your PC again, Windows 8 uses that saved system information to resume your system instead of having to do a cold boot to fully restart it. Using this technique with boot gives a significant advantage for boot times, since reading the hiberfile in and reinitializing drivers is much faster on most systems (30-70% faster on most systems tested). If you have a motherboard with UEFI, then fast startup will be even faster.



For more information about "Fast Startup", see:

Delivering fast boot times in Windows 8 - Building Windows 8 - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

and

Designing for PCs that boot faster than ever before - Building Windows 8 - Site Home - MSDN Blogs


This tutorial will show you how to turn Fast Startup on or off in Windows 8.

You must be signed in as an administrator to be able to do the steps in this tutorial.

The fast startup setting doesn't apply to Restart.

This is not the same thing as hybrid sleep/hibernate in Power Options.

If you shut down from the WIN+X menu in Windows 8.1, it will perform a full shutdown instead of a hybrid shutdown even if you have Fast Startup turned on.

   Warning

There have been many Windows 8 users complaining about various restart and shutdown issues when Fast Startup (aka: hybrid boot or hybrid Shutdown) is turned on. They report that their computers restart themselves as soon as the sign in screen appears, and some that their computer systems hang while rebooting or shutting down the system.

If you experience any of the issues, then you might turn off "Fast Startup" to see if it was the cause.

If you dual boot Windows 8 with a previous version of Windows (ex: Windows 7, Vista, XP), then it is recommended to turn off Fast Startup to avoid the issues above.

If you have Fast Startup turned on and have an external hard drive connected when you shutdown, then connect the external drive to another computer, it will create issues with Fast Startup. In this situation, it would be best to leave Fast Startup turned off.

OPTION ONE

To Turn "Fast Startup" On or Off in System Settings

1. Open the Control Panel (icons view), and click on the Power Options icon.

2. Click/tap on the Choose what the power buttons do link on the left side. (see screenshot below)





3. Click/tap on the Change settings that are currently unavailable link at the top. (see screenshot below)





4. If prompted by UAC, then click/tap on Yes.

5. Do step 6 or step 7 below for what you would like to do.

6. To Turn On "Fast Startup" (Hybrid Boot) for a "Hybrid Shutdown"
NOTE: This is the default setting.

A) Under Shutdown settings, check the Turn on fast startup box, and click/tap on the Save changes button. (see screenshot below)

NOTE: If the Turn on fast startup setting is not listed, then you will need to close the System Settings window, enable hibernate, then start back at step 1 again.





B) The Shut down Power option will now perform as a hybrid shut down when used.

C) Go to step 8 below.


7. To Turn Off "Fast Startup" for a "Full Shutdown"

A) Under Shutdown settings, uncheck the Turn on fast startup box, and click/tap on the Save changes button. (see screenshot below step 6A)

NOTE: If the Turn on fast startup setting is not listed, then hibernate has been disabled that removed this setting and also disabled fast startup.

B) The Shut down Power option will now perform as a normal full shut down when used.

C) Go to step 8 below.


8. You can now close the Power Options window if you like.

OPTION TWO

To Turn "Fast Startup" On or Off using a BAT File Download

   Note

The .bat files below are for the registry key and value below.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Power

HiberbootEnabled DWORD

0 = Turn off Fast Startup
1 = Turn on Fast Startup

1. Do step 2 or 3 below for what you would like to do.

2. To Turn On "Fast Startup" (Hybrid Boot) for a "Hybrid Shutdown"
NOTE: This is the default setting.

A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the BAT file below, and go to step 4 below.


Turn_On_Fast_Startup.bat







3. To Turn Off "Fast Startup" for a "Full Shutdown"

A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the BAT file below, and go to step 4 below.


Turn_Off_Fast_Startup.bat







4. Save the .bat file to your desktop.

5. Right click or press and hold on the downloaded .bat file, and click/tap on Run as administrator.

6. If prompted, click/tap on Run and Yes (UAC).
NOTE: If you like, you can stop getting the Run prompt by unblocking the downloaded .bat file.

7. You will now notice your screen flicker as a command prompt quickly opens and closes to apply the registry changes.

8. You can now delete the downloaded .bat file if you like.

OPTION THREE

To Turn "Fast Startup" Off by Disabling Hibernate

1. Do step 2 or 3 below for what you would like to do.


2. To Turn On "Fast Startup" (Hybrid Boot) for a "Hybrid Shutdown"
NOTE: This is the default setting.

A) UseOPTION ONE or OPTION TWO above.



3. To Turn Off "Fast Startup" for a "Full Shutdown"
NOTE: This will turn off Fast Startup and also disable hibernate.

A) Disable hibernate.





That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Check if Last Boot was from Fast Startup, Full Shutdown, or Hibernate
• How to Force "Fast Startup" to Always be Turned On in Windows 8 and 8.1
• How to Enable Fast Boot or Ultra Fast Boot in UEFI Firmware Settings for Windows
• How to Enable or Disable Hibernate in Windows 7 and Windows 8
• How to Change the Size of the hiberfil.sys File in Windows 7 and Windows 8
• How to Create a "Hybrid Shut Down" Shortcut in Windows 8 and 8.1
• How to Lock, Log off, Restart, Shut Down, and Switch User in Windows 8 and 8.1
• How to Add "Shut Down" Computer to the Desktop Context Menu in Windows 8 and 8.1
• How to Add a "Power" Cascading Desktop Context Menu in Windows 8 and 8.1
• How to Speed Up the Shut Down Time in Windows 7 and Windows 8
• How to Reduce the Startup Delay Time for Desktop Apps in Windows 8 and 8.1

[/note]

 

[Brink]

Hello Atif, and welcome to Eight Forums.

Is your network driver certified for Windows 8?

I've read elsewhere that someone reported that turning off Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6) in their network adapter properties sorted this for them. You might try the same to see if may for you as well.



Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Atif]

Hi Brink

Thanks for replying. Well, as I said I have been using original Windows 8 Pro since a month now (once it was available), i never had such problem which shows that my network driver is fully compatible with Win 8. I applied fast reboot thing just yesterday and problem started than... And its weird that its not happening every time.... Its a slight tweak that may be needed. Turning off IPV6 may hamper my other Internet experience as IPV6 is now the "in" thing and service providers are now being switched to this in addition to IPV4... I am not a pro so I wonder, i might not hamper some internet experience (happening in the background) after disabling IPV6???

 

[Brink]

I'm not aware of to many sites using IPV6 so far, but this is really just a test to see if it may help or not. It's not going to affect anything other than IPV6 connectivity. It can quickly be turned back on after testing though if you wanted to give it a try.

 

[Coke Robot]

Hello!

It appears that Hybrid Boot on my puter decided to take a Christmas vacation as it appears to not be working. I have hibernate enabled, as I use it daily as my motherboard doesn't support sleep correctly, or at least I need to jump some pins or something to get a sleep mode going. I have Fast Boot enabled, used Group Policy to force it, cycled it on and restarted and turned it off and restarted and turned it back on, and nothing. It's just like a normal boot, I feel like I'm using Windows 7 or something, what is this blasphemy!?

I do not know what to do, but I've noticed that when I go to the Power Options to turn on Hybrid Boot, a message on top says that some settings are being managed by a local system administrator. My person is my administrator, so I don't know where it's coming from to say that. This just happened kind of recent as well.

 

[Brink]

Hello Andy,

The being managed message is most likely from the policy that you enabled for fast boot. You could use the tutorial below to quickly check to see what policies you have enabled that may be responsible.

Group Policy Editor - Quickly View Enabled Policies in Windows - Windows 7 Forums

 

[Coke Robot]

OK, so I defaulted the Fast Boot settings back to Not Configured and the message is now gone.

As for fast boot being enabled, I will check that.

 

[Coke Robot]

Nope, Hybrid Boot is still not working. It's still doing a clean shutdown and startup.

It seems I may have to wait until next year it seems for Hybrid Boot to come back from vacation...

 

[Brink]

Andy,

Odd, do you remember if you may have made any changes to anything right before it stopped working?

You might see if doing a system restore using a restore point (if available) dated when it was working may help.

 

[Hopachi]

Regarding Andy's problem...

Sorry for bothering guys, but it seems I have the same problem.

It seems this was like that from the moment I've enabled it a week ago.

The settings are default from a HP OEM install. I don't know if they changed something default from Win8 settings or not.

Any ideas will be most appreciated.

Thanks
Hopachi

 

[Brink]

If you guys have a motherboard with UEFI, then also check to see if Fast Boot is enabled in UEFI as well.

 

[LM2007]

I have problems with the hybrid boot and sadly this was the only thing that attracted me to Win 8. When i tried the beta last year the boot was outstanding, now with the final version the boot is almost similar to Windows 8.

 

[Hopachi]

If you guys have a motherboard with UEFI, then also check to see if Fast Boot is enabled in UEFI as well.

Thanks Shawn.

This has to be it!

But I don't see any option after searching all BIOS.
This is a HP dv6 envy laptop.

I'll look at the HP settings, somewhere I think I saw that option but I'm not sure where.

Regards
Hopachi

 

[theog]

If you guys have a motherboard with UEFI, then also check to see if Fast Boot is enabled in UEFI as well.

Thanks Shawn.

This has to be it!

But I don't see any option after searching all BIOS.
This is a HP dv6 envy laptop.

I'll look at the HP settings, somewhere I think I saw that option but I'm not sure where.

Regards
Hopachi

On my test rig, comes under BOOT> Quick Boot.

 

[Hopachi]

If you guys have a motherboard with UEFI, then also check to see if Fast Boot is enabled in UEFI as well.

Thanks Shawn.

This has to be it!

But I don't see any option after searching all BIOS.
This is a HP dv6 envy laptop.

I'll look at the HP settings, somewhere I think I saw that option but I'm not sure where.

Regards
Hopachi

On my test rig, comes under BOOT> Quick Boot.

Thanks Ray.

This is a laptop and there is only "System Configuration" -> boot -> secure boot / legacy /uefi
No "quick boot" or "fast boot" anywhere.

On the OS, the hybrid setting is already on. The swapfile.sys is already on C: drive but the boot speed is the same as without it.
That's why I think it's not working.

As Shawn suggested and many other searches on Google state the existence of BIOS options... that are not found on some laptops (as mine).

If HP hides extra BIOS options than that is some bad news.

Hopachi

 

[Brink]

You'll still be able to use and have "Fast Startup" in Windows 8 though.

The "Quick Boot" or "Fast Boot" feature in UEFI just makes it that much faster. That's all.

 

[xraiderv1]

You'll still be able to use and have "Fast Startup" in Windows 8 though.

The "Quick Boot" or "Fast Boot" feature in UEFI just makes it that much faster. That's all.

how do we tell if we have this 'fast boot' option?

 

[Brink]

By if it's listed in your UEFI/BIOS or not. You could also read your motherboard's manual about it's UEFI/BIOS to see if it's available.

Here's some more info about this.

Designing for PCs that boot faster than ever before - Building Windows 8 - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

 

[xraiderv1]

....what manual? and how do I access my bios from within windows? doing it at boot isnt exactly easy with windows 8.

 

[LM2007]

I have it enabled, but i don't see an improvement in boot speed and i remember that when i installed the beta the boot time was amazing, like 8 or 10 seconds. But the final version takes 20 seconds to 25, a time that i experienced before with Win 7, so is a strange issue with the final version? i have not read any official statement from Microsoft.

 

[Hopachi]

I have it enabled, but i don't see an improvement in boot speed and i remember that when i installed the beta the boot time was amazing, like 8 or 10 seconds. But the final version takes 20 seconds to 25, a time that i experienced before with Win 7, so is a strange issue with the final version? i have not read any official statement from Microsoft.

I got the same thing here. (IF) It is simply not working and that you can tell by looking into Task Manager -> Processor:
-see the up-time of the system.

Right after boot I see about 1 minute all the time, but when it worked (unfortunately other pc with clean install) I had about 6 days up-time because the counter doesn't reset after hybrid-boot. This boot was around 20seconds on IDE HDD + classic BIOS.

The new system has SATA and UEFI.
Too bad the SATA doesn't beat IDE in my case...

Still looking at all kind of settings and documentation.