How many people know a shutdown is worse (at least different) to a reboot?

Posted by corruptboomerang@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 43 comments

So my wife was telling me something about her work IT troubles today, and anyway she told me that she needs to restart her computer then shut it down in the afternoon. I was puzzled, shutdown, and then turning it back on, is a reboot... But after looking into it, she's right, for her, she does need to reboot and then shutdown. Turns out for her (she works with some neich banking software), shutdown and rebooting are not the same (for her use case).

Apparently shutdown leaves some kernel processes in hibernate, while reboot doesn't do any of the quick-start stuff.

Personally, I've never noticed a difference for anything I've ever done, but TIL from my 'totally not IT wife...

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kvorythix@reddit

most people only notice when a reboot fixes what a shutdown doesn't. the fast startup junk is part of why shutdown can act weird

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pdp10@reddit

Only on Windows 10 and later, and only by default.

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beco-technology@reddit

Write a registry key that disables “fastboot.” That fixes the issue. Fastboot is such a dumb thing, and exists for no reason.

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Rustyshackilford@reddit

Other tha. Being fast... duh.

At home, fuck yea. Professionally, nah.

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beco-technology@reddit

Uhhh, what? Not disabling fastboot in production is straight up irresponsible. We're not working with platters anymore.

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Rustyshackilford@reddit

Thats what I was saying my astute friend

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beco-technology@reddit

I guess it wasn't clear?

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pdp10@reddit

It definitely exists for a reason. It's a clever hack that makes Windows "boot" faster, with less work and much better feature-marketing opportunities , than it would be to improve NT performance.

Fast boot comes with a cost. But hey, that slew of monthly updates will force a reboot once a month anyway. It's like win-win all day, down here in Redmond.

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Ferretau@reddit

Fyi not all updates in the past that require a restart actually prompt the user to restart their machine. I have seen network stacks go screwy due to an update that required a restart but didn't prompt for it.

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beco-technology@reddit

The reason for fastboot is to create more tickets from people who think they’ve shut down their computer when the bug they shut down to remediate was just saved to disk.

“What do you mean my computer has been on for two weeks? I shut it down every night!”

check’s task manager

Task manager: 14:06:66

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MBILC@reddit

This, just a hackjob method for MS to try and claim how fast Windows will boot, instead of de-bloating their OS.

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cjchico@reddit

For the lazy:

Set-ItemProperty -Path 'HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Power' -Name HiberbootEnabled -Type DWord -Value 0

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MBILC@reddit

This, fast boot as others noted, disable it, it was also an issue for some Windows 10 updates before not applying

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MajStealth@reddit

starting with win11 having a runtime above 2-3 days leads to the strangest problems.

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RansomStark78@reddit

Fast boot dude

Nasty stuff.

And do L2 techs even know this

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orev@reddit

Windows has "fast startup" enabled by default, which means a shutdown doesn't actually shut things down and is more like hibernation. Restart doesn't do this, and actually does a full reboot.

It's extremely silly that Microsoft did this, and every IT department should turn it off immediately as part of their standard build process.

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Ferretau@reddit

What I think is worse is it is so poorly documented by them - I once went looking and didn't even find a page where they talked about. All the sites I found were all third party.

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BlackV@reddit

they are not the same thing, doubly so if you have fast start (er.. whatever its called) enabled

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Master-IT-All@reddit

Yes, this is a modern PC feature for approximately the last fourteen years beginning with Windows 8.

Server hardware does not include this I believe, so if you're primarily in the server space now and not responding to "why my PC bad?" tickets you'll have missed this.

I wasn't really aware of this feature of the PC/Laptop myself until I returned to an SMB focused service provider.

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Titanium125@reddit

Yeah it’s called fast startup. It’s only by default on all windows workstation editions. I’ve met systems guys who don’t know that but all help desk techs probably do.

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MekanicalPirate@reddit

That's why you disable Fast Startup...and any other "feature" Microsoft tries to make your decision for you.

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chiperino1@reddit

Yeah this is due to fast startup. Most people say to disable hibernate to, but you know what? I get literal weeks of battery life out of seldom used devices on my desk when they have hibernate enabled. I just do a restart when I use them again, but the battery lasts so long it's worth it to me.

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headcrap@reddit

Fast startup.. yeah I sniffed that out almost a decade and four jobs ago.

Sadly, have had to do it for the last three jobs as well.

Fricken rookies.

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AntRevolutionary925@reddit

It’s fast startup, every other restart clears it out. She can just turn that feature off.

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hymie0@reddit

If this is Windows, then (it's my understanding that) a "shutdown" is (mostly) what we used to call "hibernate."

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corruptboomerang@reddit (OP)

Yes, it is. 😅 Why don't they just call it hibernate! 😂

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marklein@reddit

Because that's not what it does

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hymie0@reddit

I don't understand the difference, but I'm not a Windows person.

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trueppp@reddit

Only when fast startup is enabled (it is by default, but it's been disabled by GPO just about everywhere i worked in the last 12 years)

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ThaGoodGuy@reddit

If you don’t know about fast startup by now you must be in IT management

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xSchizogenie@reddit

promoted to customer hahaha

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marklein@reddit

https://xkcd.com/1053/

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mercurygreen@reddit

"fastboot" is a demon from the lowest depths of hell.

It's only real purpose was when we all had spinning hard drives, and boot time was measured in minutes. Now, there's not much difference in boot time with and without it turned on. By default, my organization turns it off because "but I just turned it on!" should lead to "Yes, but Microsoft..."

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MNmetalhead@reddit

Disable Fast Startup. Problem solved.

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corruptboomerang@reddit (OP)

Yeah, I've actually normally tuned it off.

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