Fast Startup - Turn On or Off in Windows 8

**Brink** · 20 May 2012

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Brink

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

Information

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.

Note

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.

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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 Fast Startup - Turn On or Off in Windows 8

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 Fast Startup - Turn On or Off in Windows 8

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 Fast Startup - Turn On or Off in Windows 8

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

**johnchuang95** · 21 May 2012

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.

**Brink** · 21 May 2012

Hello John, and welcome to Eight Forums.

I'm not sure why. Fast startup may not support using Wake-On-LAN (WOL), or there may be some sort of issue with the BIOS or drivers not supporting WOL with fast startup yet until a update for them is released.

I would certainly hope that Microsoft or the motherboard's firmware updates will hopefully have this sorted in the Windows 8 Release Preview version being released the first week of June.

**johnchuang95** · 21 May 2012

Appreciate for your reply, I will confirm the next Windows 8 preview which release on the first week of June.

**eternalx** · 07 Jul 2012

Hi Brink,

Is there any disadvantages to using hybrid boot? It seems to be turned on by default for me, hinting to me that the advantages outweighs any side-effects.

**Brink** · 08 Jul 2012

Hello eternalx, and welcome to Eight Forums.

It's a great new feature to help Windows 8 startup faster from a shut down, when one prefers to not use sleep or hibernate. There's no disadvantage, but more of a personal preference.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

**eternalx** · 09 Jul 2012

Originally Posted by Brink

Hello eternalx, and welcome to Eight Forums.

It's a great new feature to help Windows 8 startup faster from a shut down, when one prefers to not use sleep or hibernate. There's no disadvantage, but more of a personal preference.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Thank you for your help! I have notice that shutdown time is a tad slower with Hybrid Boot on, but that is to be expected.

**Brink** · 09 Jul 2012

You're most welcome. Yeah, it'll take a bit longer at shut down while it's saving to the hiberfil.sys file.

**FSeal** · 09 Jul 2012

Normal hibernation was already mighty fast, especially on an SSD.

The only problem is, I've not had a computer that would survive more than 3-4 hibernations in a row before some device driver or another craps out and this won't change that. Though on the plus side of this hybrid boot, when the computer DOES crap out to a driver not liking being hibernated for the 4rth time, you are not to lose any program data like happens on a full hibernate though since all the apps will be closed before hibernation...

**nonpasaran** · 04 Nov 2012

Hi Shawn,

Maybe you can add a third option: Disable Hibernate in Windows 8

Because if you disable Hibernate, Fast Startup also disabling automatically