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]

 

[johnpombrio]

gawd, the troubles I have had by NOT knowing that I was NOT doing a cold boot when using shutdown. I turned off fast startup as soon as I read your tutorial. If I had read this a year ago, I would have had a lot less grief! Thanks Brink!

 

[Brink]

Glad it could help John.

 

[mikko75]

There's no disadvantage, but more of a personal preference.

Well, there is one: with the fast boot, the num-lock is never activated in login screen, so you have to always press the num lock key before you can enter your pin code. This is frustrating, because mostly we don't remember to do this at the first time...

Can anybody explain why MS could not get this working properly? Is it machine depended, or does this happen to everybody?

Mikko

 

[Brink]

Hello Mikko, and welcome to Eight Forums.

You might check your UEFI/BIOS settings to see if you may have one to turn on num-lock at boot.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[KNNFoddr]

There's no disadvantage, but more of a personal preference.

Well, there is one: with the fast boot, the num-lock is never activated in login screen, so you have to always press the num lock key before you can enter your pin code. This is frustrating, because mostly we don't remember to do this at the first time...

Can anybody explain why MS could not get this working properly? Is it machine depended, or does this happen to everybody?

Mikko

It's a known bug. Num Lock state not retained after resume from Hybrid Shutdown

 

[KNNFoddr]

Thanks, Shawn!

Disabling Fast Startup also solved an issue I was having with a USB HP P1006 printer. The printer would frequently stop responding, and the jammed print queue wasn't being cleared by Shutdown (looks like I should have used Reset, but my troubleshooting habit for printer issues is to choose Shutdown, then unplug the printer's AC for 10 seconds).

While clicking through printer properties settings looking for a fix, I caused a blue screen with an error I hadn't seen before: WHEA_uncorrectable_error. Searching on that error soon led me to this post and the fix. In fact, the printer hasn't had a problem since I disabled Fast Startup a week ago.

 

[Brink]

Thank you KNN for posting your findings and results, and welcome to Eight Forums.

 

[icono]

Hi,
After enable the new fature "Turn On Fast Startup" then shut down my computer, I found my computer can not be wake up LAN, is it a bug or something wrong?

PS. If disable the feature, my computer can be waked up normally.

I burnt a TechNet call to talk to Microsoft about it. They will not support Wake on Lan in the traditional sense. The solution is to use AMT for wake on lan. We have yet to implement that due to it being a pain to set up with all the signed certificates etc but we'll have to before we start supporting Windows 8.

 

[Richman1]

Hello, I have an issue with disabling fast startup. Although this tutorial explain exactly how to do it just fine, when I go to the area where the option to get this done, the option to disable/enable happens to be disabled. And that isn't a coincidental oxymoron either, I mean the option to change the restart is "grayed out". Does anyone know why I can't change it? I need to try changing it because I have a Quad boot setup and every time I "restart" from Windows 8 I get the boot manager reverting back to the way it looks in Windows 7. Of course if I shut down it shows the Windows 8 boot manager on start-up.

 

[Brink]

Hello Richman,

Double check to make sure that you did step 3 in Option One to be able to turn on or off Fast Startup.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[xraiderv1]

what do we do if fast startup is enabled and greyed out? as it it wont let us turn it off? hypothetical here.

 

[Brink]

what do we do if fast startup is enabled and greyed out? as it it wont let us turn it off? hypothetical here.

I'd say double check to make sure that you did step 3 in Option One to not have it grayed out anymore.

If you did, then you might see if Fast Startup may have been set to always be turned on, and undo it using the tutorial below.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/7806-fast-startup-force-use-all-users-windows-8-a.html
​

Hope this helps.

 

[xraiderv1]

ah...there we go, thanks brink.

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome mate.

 

[Richman1]

Hello Richman,

Double check to make sure that you did step 3 in Option One to be able to turn on or off Fast Startup.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Thanks For the reminder Brink. But I think it was one of those other things I missed or didn't think was important. I disabled 'Hybrid Sleep' and after that I was able to change the fast start-up setting. They seam to be inextricably linked together.

 

[Brink]

Richman,

Thank you for posting back with your findings. I tested with hybrid turned on and off, and was still able to turn on/off Fast Startup. The only thing that made a difference for me was if hibernate was enabled or not. Odd.

 

[drugo]

Hi Sir Brink

i have w8.1 fresh install but i have not such option

 

[Brink]

Hello Drugo,

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

 

[drugo]

Hello Drugo,

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

ops right , i forgot about it
thanks Sir

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome.