Disable or Enable Windows 10 Fast Startup (and Why)

Fast startup is a great feature for improving boot time, but sometimes this can cause problems for Linux dual boot users, or take up precious hard drive space on your machine.



Fast startup is one of the most commonly used features in Windows, designed to improve boot times when starting your PC. Most PCs have this enabled by default, and for the vast majority of users we’d recommend to keep this enabled for the best experience.

However, if you’re one of the users that finds you need to disable this feature (or wants to save some hard drive space), follow this guide to learn more about Fast Startup and how to disable this.


What is Fast Startup?

PCs can be turned off, restarted, and booted up again many times a day, and Microsoft claims that on average each of us boots their PC at least once a day. The good news is that with the Windows fast startup experience, the days of minutes long boot times are gone on Windows 10.

Fast startup is an attempt by Microsoft to speed up this process, by putting your PC into a mixed power state between Hibernation and full shut down. Whilst your PC may look like it’s completely powered off, Windows is actually saving the kernel state to your hard drive and loads this when booting.

Overall this can mean a significant boost to startup times, however this also means that your PC may not be “truly” powered off as you’d expect.


Should I disable fast startup?

Sounds great - why would I want to disable this? Whilst most users will want to keep this activated, there are a couple of situations where it might make sense to disable this.

• Dual booting with Linux - whilst fast startup is great if you only have one operating system (OS) on the machine, if you want to dual boot with Linux then you might run into problems. Typically the Linux os-prober will not be able to identify Windows 8 or 10 with fast startup enabled, and this may also lock the hard drive (preventing Linux working correctly at all).
  
  
• Devices not supporting hibernation - whilst infrequent, some PCs may run into hardware problems with supporting hibernation. This may appear as buttons on the keyboard not working, the power button being unresponsive, or in some cases being faced with a blank monitor screen until a full restart is carried out.
  
  
• Interference with encrypted disk images - if you’re using something like TrueCrypt or other 3rd party encryption programs, some users have reported compatibility issues with fast startup. This is usually resolved by unmounting the encrypted drives, but if this doesn’t happen automatically you may run into problems.
  
  
• Shutdown should shutdown - fundamentally, fast startup may be counterintuitive to what some users are expecting to happen. Although this speeds up your system, your PC does not truly power off with this mode enabled.
  
  
• Save on hard drive space - although the HD space requirements aren’t massive, if you’d prefer that nothing extra is saved to the hard drive then disabling this is an option.

How to Disable/Enable Fast Startup

The good news is that disabling / enabling fast startup is pretty easy, and can be done in a few simple steps.

1. Press Windows key + X and select Power Options from the menu that appears.

1. Alternatively, click Start, and type “Power Options” into the search bar, and select Power & sleep settings. You will then need to select Additional power settings on the right hand side of the settings screen.
   
   
2. You should now see the Power Options window. Select Choose what the power buttons do on the left hand side.

1. Click on Change settings that are currently unavailable to enable advanced configuration
2. Uncheck Turn on fast start-up (recommended)

1. Click Save Changes and you’re good to go!

Disable/Enable Fast Startup via Group Policy Editor

If you’re an enterprise user, running either Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise or Education editions, you may want to use the Group Policy Editor to make changes to your devices.

Unfortunately the Group Policy Editor cannot be used to completely disable fast startup, but using this method can be used to enforce the local group policy.

If Fast Startup options do not appear in your settings using the method above, use this method to re-enable your settings.


Local Group Policy Editor

1. Click Start, and search for edit group policy in the Windows search bar.
2. Press “Edit Group Policy” to load the Local Group Policy Editor.
3. Navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Shutdown

1. Right click on Require use of fast startup and select Edit

Editing this policy provides a couple of different options:

• Enabled - Fast Startup will always be used if this setting is selected.
• Disabled - Fast Startup is not enforced, and will use the local policy (aka control panel settings).
• Not Configured - by default most machines will have this set to not configured. If this option is used, Fast Startup is not enforced and will use the local policy (aka control panel settings).

Setting this option to either Disabled or Not Configured will allow you to disable fast startup via control panel options.

Alternatively if you wish to enforce fast startup across the local group, set this policy to Enabled to ignore control panel options.


In conclusion…

We hope this tutorial has been useful. As always, if you run into any issues, feel free to create a new thread on our help forums for free expert technical support!

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[britechguy]

I have yet to see any real advantage, and there are many disadvantages, to the whole Fast Startup paradigm.

On machines with SSDs the difference in startup time (when everything is working as it should) is imperceptible and on those with HDDs it's really not all that much reduced.

I have had some very bizarre behaviors under both Windows 8/8.1 and 10 that were eventually traced back to corruptions in the special partial hibernation file (it only includes the OS system state, and no user state information) that is used by Fast Startup. Many are not even aware, to this day, that the default setting, which has Fast Startup turned ON, means that doing a Shutdown on their systems does not result in a complete shutdown such that the operating system reloads itself from disk on the next power-up cycle.

It has always struck me as entirely backward that a Restart forces a complete power down and purge of the entire OS system state, with an automatic restart and reloading from disk, while Shutdown is now a form of hibernation.

One of the things on my Windows 10 Initial Configuration Checklist is turning Fast Startup OFF.

 

[m0xaDVXPhatC0wn]

Great, Article.

 

[xrobwx71]

Thanks Will!

This:
powercfg.exe /hibernate off executed in an elevated command prompt, will also remove the Fast Startup setting.

 

[britechguy]

Thanks Will!

This:
powercfg.exe /hibernate off executed in an elevated command prompt, will also remove the Fast Startup setting.

But, it also removes the ability to do a regular full hibernation as well. That may not matter if your someone who doesn't ever hibernate their machine, though.

Fast Startup is a special form of hibernation where only the Windows OS state is saved to disk for reloading, while full hibernation saves not only that but the user(s) state(s) as well.

If the ability to hibernate is turned off as a whole, you can do neither.

 

[jcgriff2]

Is it true in general that new/newer desktop PCs usually don't have hibernation as a power option - as if hibernation was turned off? Only laptops have hibernation as a default power option?

The size of c:\hiberfil.sys used to be = installed physical + 100-200 MB.

Windows 8 - 75% of RAM dumped into hiberfile.sys; the remaining 25% - goes to the page file

W10, hiberfile.sys remains at 75% RAM, although it can be as small as 40% RAM, which based on below CMD shell, the user can set it to no less than 40% of RAM.

W10 -

Size of my hibernation file -

Which is about 41% of the 32 GB installed physical RAM. I have made no changes to the settings.

John

 

[britechguy]

Hibernation is not shown as an option on the Power menu under Windows 10 by default, and never has been, regardless of the hardware platform. You must intentionally turn it on using Control Panel, Power Options, Choose what the Power button does link, Change settings that are currently unavailable link, then checking the Hibernate checkbox.

When is the last time you have done a restart? This should reload windows from scratch, and hiberfil.sys should only be holding the windows system state, not the windows system and user states like true hibernation does.

I never touch the settings related to Windows managing all of this stuff, as over time (and trials) I've found it to be more trouble than allowing the "as shipped" automatic management of system files.

Of course, I disable Fast Startup as a matter of course, and particularly on machines with SSDs, as the issues that can occur with corruption of the special hibernation file are far, far more vexing and difficult to understand (in terms of system behavior) than the couple of additional seconds, if that, required to boot from scratch from an SSD after a full shutdown.

 

[andrewlen]

Just a note on Windows Hibernation (or suspend to disk for any macOS users reading).

I've been handed many laptops over the years where the primary complaint from the owner was long startup delays and Windows being unresponsive for x number of "minutes" after the Windows desktop appeared despite all icons in the notification tray being present that should be. That goes back all the way to when Windows 98 and XP were first released. As a result, I wish I had a dollar for every time the fix to the ailing laptop was as simple as disabling hibernation.

Quite sure I'd have enough for a nice fine dining dinner for two by now. :)

As a result, one of the first things I will ask people who complain about slow startup issues is not what's in their Startup list, but to check if hibernation had been enabled on the machine and if they were knowingly using it.

In my experience, many people don't even understand what it is and have never knowingly tried to use it because they would routinely close all open programs and windows before shutting down their machines. On average, a hibernated computer could take ~2 minutes longer to become fully responsive than if that machine was just booted from a normal shutdown. The machines would immediately boot significantly faster and I'd yet to even peek at their startup programs to see what was set to load at startup.

On a few occasions when I handed a laptop back to a client minutes after looking it over, I was hailed as some type of computer guru, yet all I did was issue a simple command in an elevated prompt that is now burned into my memory.

powercfg.exe /hibernate off

A bonus was them gaining a noticeable increase in available space on their system drive as the hiberfil.sys file is also deleted when hibernation is disabled.

This post is in no way written to discourage people from using Hibernation - it is simply a true reflection of my own experiences when dealing with a lot of people's machines over the years. I totally understand that it can be a highly useful feature that some people swear by and love, but in my experience, it often causes far more problems than it solves, particularly when dealing with laptops (or desktops) that may have less than 80% of space left on their system drives. The problem is amplified if the system drive is a HDD rather than an SSD that does not get defragmented regularly. (Side note: Many non-technical users would often disable defragmentation because they were convinced their drives would last longer that way)

Anyway, if you see a cry for help and the person is complaining about a machine taking too long to boot up or become responsive after a startup, ask them the question. I think you may be surprised at how often the problem is cured by simply turning the hibernation feature off and in many cases, you may find yourself getting asked by the person seeking help - what's hibernation anyway?

Regards, Andrew

 

[xrobwx71]

@andrewlen

I've done the same. I've also, after the reboot, typed in powercfg.exe /hibernate on and handed it back. My goal was to reduce the size of hiberfil.sys and remove any possible corruption and give them back a default machine.

 

[andrewlen]

I've done the same. I've also, after the reboot, typed in powercfg.exe /hibernate on and handed it back. My goal was to reduce the size of hiberfil.sys and remove any possible corruption and give them back a default machine.

Actually, I've done the same thing when the laptop owner was in fact making use of hibernation. Thank you for your addition to my post. I neglected to mention that and yes, I totally agree, that too can ease issues and appear to be an instant miracle cure :)

 

[britechguy]

Unless something has changed, and significantly, doing a Restart should wipe out any existing hiberfil.sys, which is only retained if you are using hibernation or fast startup to begin with.

I always hated that Fast Startup essentially made Shutdown completely counterintuitive. Shutdown when Fast Startup is enabled is not a complete shutdown, but a special form of hibernation where only the Windows System state is saved, rather than both the Windows System and active user state (or users states) in regular hibernation.

But Restart does, in fact, do an actual full shutdown and set a timer to start up again to "instantly" reboot. But it shuts down, it does not hibernate, and that's even if Fast Startup is enabled.

I seldom encounter anyone unintentionally using Hibernate except "under the hood" as part of Fast Startup. There was a time when I used it quite a bit, as I would need to "grab and dash" with a laptop that I wanted to have back up and running, in exactly the state I left it in, as quickly as possible. Now I far more frequently use Sleep since I don't need to keep the computer turned off for more than a couple of hours, at most, and very seldom that long.

I also keep my primary machine up and running 24/7, with only the occasional Shutdown/Power-Up (complete, as Fast Startup is disabled) or straight Restart.

 

[xrobwx71]

doing a Restart should wipe out any existing hiberfil.sys

Unless the file is corrupted and for whatever reason keeps growing regardless of reboots. I've used this method to fix quite a handful of issues.

I think the current Win 10 hiberfil default is 40% of your RAM.

 

[britechguy]

Unless the file is corrupted and for whatever reason keeps growing regardless of reboots. I've used this method to fix quite a handful of issues.

I've actually never encountered a situation where hiberfil.sys would not delete on Restart, but I have zero doubt that this could occur, as nothing's too strange to be true when it comes to weird computer issues.

I've definitely used a forced Restart to nuke hiberfil.sys on many occasions since Fast Startup is enabled by default and that means most users have no idea that it's there and it's on. Two of the most bizarre situations I've ever encountered were due to corruptions in hiberfil.sys, and it was a complete accident that I was able to figure this out. And one of those two situations was on the PC for a client who used a screen reader and where the corruption just completely screwed up how the keyboard was interacting with the machine. Hence the reason I turned off Fast Startup on that machine, as once a blind user cannot use their accessibility software it becomes impossible for them to independently apply any fixes to their computers.

 

[andrewlen]

I've actually never encountered a situation where hiberfil.sys would not delete on Restart, but I have zero doubt that this could occur, as nothing's too strange to be true when it comes to weird computer issues.

Confirmed. I've had a few instances where I'd disabled hibernation, restarted and noted the hiberfil.sys file persisted in the root directory of the c: drive. In those (rare) cases, it was always possible to simply delete the file manually from File Explorer after which it would not return - unless hibernation was enabled again of course.

As a side note, I completely agree with Fast Startup being problematic. Like others who have posted here, it's one of the first things I disable in Windows when setting up a new machine or when doing maintenance and I note that it's enabled.

 

[jcgriff2]

Hibernation is not shown as an option on the Power menu under Windows 10 by default, and never has been, regardless of the hardware platform.

Hi Brian...

Umm..... I don't know what to tell you because hibernation absolutely appeared as a default power option on my newest (Jan 2021) HP laptop running Windows 10 Pro.

These are the default power options that have always been available to me. I have never altered them -

1. Sleep
2. Hibernate
3. Shut Down
4. Restart

From systeminfo.exe

Windows install date (1st, original boot-up of new system) + Last system reboot -

Original Install Date:     1/9/2021, 9:58:30 AM
System Boot Time:          [HI]8/16/2021, 6:03:55 PM[/HI]

The current c:\hiberfil.sys file does match the timestamp of "System Boot Time" - so it obviously was wiped/reallocated upon system reboot when Windows Updates were installed -

Thank you - I never knew that the hiberfile was deleted and reallocated during reboot.

John

 

[britechguy]

John,

I cannot explain why Hibernate would have appeared on the Power Options when you hit the power button. Nothing is too strange to be believed, but many others can confirm my earlier assertion that the "usual default" under Windows 10 (unless they've changed something very recently) Home and Pro at least is that Hibernate is NOT presented as an option in the Power Menu.

And that's completely separate from the ability of the system to hibernate being active, as it must be active for that other default, Fast Startup, to be enabled.

If hibernation itself is disabled so is Fast Startup, as Fast Startup is directly dependent on the ability to do its own special version of hibernation.