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]

 

[Hopachi]

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

Thank you for the article Shawn.

Windows 8 has a problem – it really can boot up too quickly.

This is true: I see it daily. But still managed to get in BIOS. ..once after 3 attempts..
But I like it this way messages delay is set to 0seconds and it's a very short BIOS time in general (Task Manager shows that nicely).

I have swapfile.sys on disk and hybrid boot is on.
But after shutdown, I start up the machine and the boot has the same speed as when in normal shutdown (measured).
Going to Task Manager to check the system up-time reveals always about 1 minute, right after boot.

So I guess it's not working in my (strange?) case.

I'm still looking at settings and all sort of articles and I'll definitely post back some results if (hopefully) it gets fixed.
I was thinking to reset some settings, maybe delete swapfile and re-enable it. Maybe installing a Win8 test install in a VHD besides the original one just to see if default settings work better. I'm still thinking about this.


But before I'll start changing some settings I'd like to say something that may have importance in the matter:
I used the right click Hybrid ShutDown shortcut you have added here in a tutorial a few times. It's basically the -hybrid switch in the command prompt. But once it took more than 1hour to shut down and when I went back in the room it wasn't off yet so I forced stopped the pc (long-hold on power button). I don't know why it happened but the power on later didn't noticed anything wrong and went directly to start screen (normally). Maybe this was one of the (longest) failed hybrid boots that can happen and it maybe has something to do with the issue I'm facing but I'm not sure.

Thanks
Hopachi

 

[Brink]

Hopachi,

It sounds like you may had something hanging at shut down. Possibly some program that's not playing nice.

 

[Hopachi]

Hopachi,

It sounds like you may had something hanging at shut down. Possibly some program that's not playing nice.

I'll try to investigate it.
Dire Straits - Private Investigations.

I think I'll begin looking in Event Viewer. Not all HP programs were removed in my case, and I got many Intel services installed.


Thanks a lot!
Hopachi

 

[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.

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.

Funny mine says 9 hours 31 up time and the boot is not good.

 

[Hopachi]

Funny mine says 9 hours 31 up time and the boot is not good.

But that means is working!

You most probably also have the swapfile.sys on the Windows drive (usually C: drive).

On the other hand, your Core 2 Solo and the (I'm guessing) HDD have to do the load work but they seem to be not that fast nowadays.

My HDD is 5400rpm and a 70seconds boot is the maximum Win8 gives.

 

[xraiderv1]

15 seconds to login screen... 5 when resuming from standby.

 

[Hopachi]

15 seconds to login screen... 5 when resuming from standby.

So did you found the "fast startup" then?

Yes, here 5 when resuming from standby as well, and... 83 seconds to login screen when booting.

It sounds like you may had something hanging at shut down.

I'm still looking... Event Viewer has many messages and I don't know the best log section where to look.
Some entries say database timeout msiexec.exe... others report corrupted install of hpdskflt....

Seems a new BIOS is released recently for my laptop, version F. 22. The one thing that looks interesting in the changelog is this:

- Fixes an intermittent issue where pressing the power button for 4 seconds to force the system to shutdown causes the system to stop functioning and display a black screen when the system is powered on (rebooted).

Another thing is even a shorter BIOS time.
It's HP Envy DV6 7250.

I've already applied it.
The menu options are the same still no fast boot but at least one possible system hang is out of the way now.

 

[tommygun]

Just a Question

Hi.
I've just disabled the "Fast Startup" option to see if it makes a difference and I noticed that the shutdown is faster, but the startup is as fast as it was before with "Fast Startup" enabled, maybe even a tiny bit faster (20-25 sec. until the Start screen is up).
Could someone please have a look at the attached capture and tell me if this is configured properly.
As you can see I changed the power button from sleep to shutdown which should be alright I guess.
Thanks in advance,

 

[wins]

Even for me Fast Startup enabled does not make much difference in startup time. I prefer to hibernate fully which reduces by about half the time it takes for normal startup.

 

[Brink]

You really won't notice much if any difference with "Fast Startup" turned on unless you have an UEFI motherboard with it turned on in the UEFI settings as well.

A lot if this really depends on the hardware.

 

[xraiderv1]

how do we determine if we have a UEFI enabled motherboard?

 

[Brink]

how do we determine if we have a UEFI enabled motherboard?

The motherboard specs will let you know if it as a UEFI firmware chip or not.

The 64-bit OS will have to be installed using the method for UEFI below instead of the usual "legacy" way for it to use UEFI. Check to see if you have the same amount and type of partitions.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorial...e-firmware-interface-install-windows-8-a.html

 

[xraiderv1]

how do I find my motherboard's specs?

 

[Brink]

If this is for your Sony SVE141290X, then it appears that it's not clear since the link at Sony doesn't mention UEFI.

Sony eSupport - SVE141290X - Support

If it's a new computer that came with Windows 8 preinstalled, then it most likely has a UEFI firmware chip.

One way to tell is to boot into your UEFI or BIOS. If it has nice UI type screen like below, then it's UEFI. Another way is to read the boot screen during boot to see if has a UEFI firmware version listed instead of a BIOS version.

 

[wins]

Motherboard unknown.

You should also be able to find your motherboard make and model from System Info.

Type msinfo32.exe in Run.....under System Summary check System Manufacturer and System Model.

With that information you can find out more detailed specs from the manufacturer website ...or just search in google.

 

[xraiderv1]

no gui like what brink posted, but it says my bios mode is UEFI? and that it is secure boot enabled...

 

[Brink]

It has UEFI, and is enabled then.

 

[xraiderv1]

thanks brink!

 

[Brink]

You're welcome mate.

 

[Gelashvili]

You are awesome man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!