Poll Do You Use Fast Startup on Windows 11?

[Divine_Barakah]

That's a MBAM bug, supposedly fixed.

I have been using MB for a while now and never experienced this issue before. The link @brambedkar59 shared confirms that others exxxperienced iit. I am going to contact MB support and see what they say about it.

 

[lokamoka820]

Thank you all for your answers, after reading your comments, I checked my task manager and found that some software startup services doesn't run since I enabled fast startup as @Divine_Barakah mentioned, so I will disable it.

Now what is better, disabling it from the power settings page, or disabling Hibernate completely from the terminal?

 

[Divine_Barakah]

Thank you all for your answers, after reading your comments, I checked my task manager and found that some software startup services doesn't run since I enabled fast startup as @Divine_Barakah mentioned, so I will disable it.

Now what is better, disabling it from the power settings page, or disabling Hibernate completely from the terminal?

And let me ask this. Is Fast Boot in BIOS settings the same as Fast Startup?

 

[brambedkar59]

And let me ask this. Is Fast Boot in BIOS settings the same as Fast Startup?

Fast boot vs Fast startup

HI, guys! I see a Fast Boot option in BIOS(MSI motherboard), and a Fast Startup option in the Power Options section of Windows 10. Are they referring to the same thing? I had enabled fast startup in windows power option and don't know if it requires to enable Fast boot option in BIOS(it is...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[roger_m]

I am using Fast Startup now, as I re-enabled hibernation. If it causes issues I will disable it.

 

[Marko :)]

That's a MBAM bug, supposedly fixed.

My turtle laptop has an HDD and I still disable it.

Mine with 5400 RPM HDD is so slow, even fast startup doesn't help. So on that laptop, I just use hibernation because is much, much faster at booting. I also turned off boot screen and reduced boot timeout. Now it's relatively fast at starting.

I was planning to replace HDD with SSD at some point, but considering it was 12 year old laptop and it has issues with BIOS and CMOS, it just wasn't worth for me.

 

[Slerion]

Theoretically yes, it affects the life span as it essentially saves a snapshot of your system's RAM to your SSD when you shut down.

No, it only takes a Snapshot of certain files and kernel drivers , its like maybe 500mb of stuff it snapshots and hibernates on the SSD /nvme entirely pointless and annoying.
thats also not meaningfully in anyway since like 5 or 6 years for SSD.

"

1. Fast Startup in Windows 11 is a feature designed to reduce the time it takes for your computer to boot up. Here’s how it works:
   
   1. Hybrid Shutdown: Instead of completely shutting down, Fast Startup logs off all users and then hibernates the system. This means that the kernel session and device drivers are saved to a file, allowing the system to start up more quickly next time."

its useless feature and only brings issues honestly not loading drivers and kernel fresh.

 

[SeriousHoax]

If you still want to keep fast startup enabled for whatever reason, you can still shutdown the PC normally just by holding down the "Shift" key while clicking the "Shut down" button to properly shutdown the system instead of hybrid shutdown aka hibernate.

its useless feature and only brings issues honestly not loading drivers and kernel fresh.

I saw Bitdefender employees saying on the forum that this fast startup is the reason why they are sometimes forced to perform a program update without restarting the system by disabling Bitdefender's protection for a few seconds (though they say it doesn't stop fully and also all new modules have to be kept on ram as they cannot replace some files without a restart) as most users never fully shutdown the system because of fast startup. There are other cases where restart cannot be avoided and, in those cases, they ask the user to restart but many users often even ignore that. The same sometimes also happens for Kaspersky and Microsoft Defender every time kill its process completely for a few seconds when it installs a new program update. I had a case in my VM when I ran a malware for testing and at the same time Defender was performing its program update in the background which I was unaware of, so the system became infected even though Defender had the ability to detect it after execution.
So fast startup is

 

[Sorrento]

On a rare fresh install Hibernate is one of the first files to be zapped

 

[Marko :)]

No, it only takes a Snapshot of certain files and kernel drivers , its like maybe 500mb of stuff it snapshots and hibernates on the SSD /nvme entirely pointless and annoying.
thats also not meaningfully in anyway since like 5 or 6 years for SSD.

"

1. Fast Startupin Windows 11 is a feature designed to reduce the time it takes for your computer to boot up. Here’s how it works:
   1. Hybrid Shutdown: Instead of completely shutting down, Fast Startup logs off all users and then hibernates the system. This means that the kernel session and device drivers are saved to a file, allowing the system to start up more quickly next time."

its useless feature and only brings issues honestly not loading drivers and kernel fresh.

Exactly. @brambedkar59 I think you confused fast startup with hibernation. Hibernation saves ENTIRE content of your RAM to disk and returns it into RAM when you power your PC again.
Fast startup, instead of saving entire content of RAM on disk, it just saves a few small necessary Windows files. This is why fast startup is also called hybrid shut down. Because it combines classic shut down with hibernation.

It's also why it's recommended to disable hibernation on PCs with SSD. My Windows installation currently uses 6,5 GB out of 16 GB. That means every time I would hibernate my laptop, it would unnecessary wrote 6,5 GB on SSD. Might not sound a lot, but if you shut down PC at least once a day, on a yearly basis, it's a lot. And that's how SSD lifetime is reduced; the less writings the better.

Fast startup isn't needed on SSDs because they are fast plenty enough so Windows can boot immediately. Even though it doesn't save a lot of data to SSD and might not reduce SSD life in a magnitude hibernation does, it still unnecessary writes data without any reason.

If you still want to keep fast startup enabled for whatever reason, you can still shutdown the PC normally just by holding down the "Shift" key while clicking the "Shut down" button to properly shutdown the system instead of hybrid shutdown aka hibernate.

Thanks for sharing this! This is a trick not many people know. Also, if you hold Shift key and click on the Restart it will automatically boot into recovery menu.

 

[Sandbox Breaker - DFIR]

I use it. One big risk is data recovery efforts and exploitation. It's alot easier to get the data on a machine that has it on. I use preboot with with bitlocker to prevent these and tpm attacks.

I'll probably turn fast startup off now lol.

 

[brambedkar59]

Exactly. @brambedkar59 I think you confused fast startup with hibernation. Hibernation saves ENTIRE content of your RAM to disk and returns it into RAM when you power your PC again.
Fast startup, instead of saving entire content of RAM on disk, it just saves a few small necessary Windows files. This is why fast startup is also called hybrid shut down. Because it combines classic shut down with hibernation.

It's also why it's recommended to disable hibernation on PCs with SSD. My Windows installation currently uses 6,5 GB out of 16 GB. That means every time I would hibernate my laptop, it would unnecessary wrote 6,5 GB on SSD. Might not sound a lot, but if you shut down PC at least once a day, on a yearly basis, it's a lot. And that's how SSD lifetime is reduced; the less writings the better.

Fast startup isn't needed on SSDs because they are fast plenty enough so Windows can boot immediately. Even though it doesn't save a lot of data to SSD and might not reduce SSD life in a magnitude hibernation does, it still unnecessary writes data without any reason.

I should have chosen better words; I simplified too much. What I meant was when system shutdown happens with fast startup enabled it logs off user and saves the OS state (kernel, drivers, services, etc) in hibernation file and resumes it by loading that data from hibernation file when next time system is turned on.

Distinguishing Fast Startup from Wake-from-Hibernation - Windows drivers

Starting with Windows 8, a fast startup mode is available to start a computer in less time than is typically required for a traditional, cold startup.

learn.microsoft.com

 

[rashmi]

I disabled fast startup on Windows. It has the potential to impede software functions like imaging/backup, RollBack Rx, etc.

 

[lokamoka820]

I disabled fast startup on Windows. It has the potential to impede software functions like imaging/backup, RollBack Rx, etc.

I noticed that too, and I disabled it.

 

[Slerion]

yep , it still baffless me why this Mess of a "Feature" is enabled by default like seriously.

 

[Divine_Barakah]

yep , it still baffless me why this Mess of a "Feature" is enabled by default like seriously.

It caused issues for some users. I have had it enabled for ages, but a day or two ago I experienced an issue with MB and I believe it was caused by Fast Startup. I have contacted MB support, but still have not received a reply from them.

 

[lokamoka820]

It caused issues for some users. I have had it enabled for ages, but a day or two ago I experienced an issue with MB and I believe it was caused by Fast Startup. I have contacted MB support, but still have not received a reply from them.

My IObit Uninstaller services was not working at all when Fast Startup was enabled, I disabled it and now everything work as it should be.

 

[Divine_Barakah]

My IObit Uninstaller services was not working at all when Fast Startup was enabled, I disabled it and now everything work as it should be.

I also disabled it and I have not notices any boot speed differences.

 

[lokamoka820]

Now what is better, disabling it from the power settings page, or disabling Hibernate completely from the terminal?

I thought I would update here again and answer my own question, just to share some information about this thread.

I disabled Fast Startup as I mentioned before and that helped in fixing issues like some software startup services doesn't run as it is supposed to, but I noticed that if I put my laptop in sleep mode for 3 hours it hibernates automatically, so it will not wake up by opening the lid or pressing on mouse or keyboard, I must press the physical power button to start it again, and my session was saved, so I decided to disable Hibernate completely from the terminal because I don't need it.

Now, my power options look like this:

 

[Divine_Barakah]

Emsisoft response to my question about Fast Startup

Thank you for your message and for taking the time to share your experience. It's great to hear that you've installed Emsisoft on your new system and are closely monitoring its performance.



Regarding your inquiry about Windows Fast Startup and Emsisoft, I understand your concern, especially given your previous experience with Malwarebytes.



Windows Fast Startup is a feature designed to speed up the boot time by saving the state of the operating system to a file upon shutdown, rather than fully shutting down the system. However, this feature can sometimes cause issues with various software, particularly security applications, as it doesn't reload all system processes and drivers from scratch.



Emsisoft generally works well with Windows Fast Startup enabled, but, like any security software, it could be affected by the way Fast Startup manages system states. There haven't been widespread reports of issues specifically between Emsisoft and Fast Startup, but that doesn't entirely rule out the possibility of isolated cases where a system's specific configuration could lead to problems.



Given your system's power and your preference for stability over startup speed, disabling Fast Startup might indeed be a prudent choice. This would ensure that all system processes, including those of Emsisoft, are fully reinitialized with each boot, potentially avoiding any issues that could arise from partial system states being restored.