Advice Request Turning off "Fast Startup" makes Windows (and other softwares) more stable and can solve many problems

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IkariGradius

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Jan 17, 2019
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Many of you might know about this, but still I feel it's worth a post for those who don't know yet. "Fast startup" is activated by default on Windows 10, and after reading various troubleshooting and posts over the web, I've noticed it's quite often the culprit causing quite a few bugs and annoyances. To make things short, fast startup works like a deep hibernation of a sort. Instead of loading all drivers and files from scratch, fast startup will keep some of those in memory (that's oversimplified of course) in order to make the computer boot faster.

The problem is that this can cause not only Windows but also various other softwares (especially antiviruses) not to work properly. It's quite notorious on the Norton forums where it's often advised to be turned off, and quite often doing so solves the issue. Malwarebytes also has an issue where the icon tray sometimes doesn't load because of it. Same goes for quite a few other AVs. Basically, as a rule, when you encounter a problem that is recurring upon startup but resolved after rebooting the computer, turning off fast startup will usually solve the problem. Also by turning off fast startup, it allows users to shutdown and install Windows updates (instead of a mandatory restart), which can be useful at times.

My take on it is unless you have a very old or under powered computer that you happen to turn on and off often during the day, turning off fast startup should be among the first thing to do upon installing Windows 10. Also Microsoft should turn it off be default, as quite a lot of users are unaware of this, and this setting makes quite the difference in stability of Windows 10.

Here's some interesting links about it:

How to disable Windows 10 fast startup

Updates may not be installed with Fast Startup in Windows 10 (documentation from Microsoft's website)
 

Freud2004

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Jun 26, 2020
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Agree, I have been disabled fast startup since the day my laptop was purchased...
For example, it's recommended to use Shadow Defender with disabled fast startup.

Yes, if you have an Acer predator for predator sensor work correctly after update Nvidia drivers, fast startup has to be off.

And in my new PC and don't see any visible speed difference in boot time, with or without fast startup.
 

SeriousHoax

Level 47
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Mar 16, 2019
3,630
My previous laptop also had issue with fast startup. I haven't disabled it on my PC but while shutting down, if you click the "Shut down" button holding down the Shift key then the PC shuts down normally without going into fast startup mode. I do this sometimes to freshen things up.
 

IkariGradius

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Jan 17, 2019
70
My previous laptop also had issue with fast startup. I haven't disabled it on my PC but while shutting down, if you click the "Shut down" button holding down the Shift key then the PC shuts down normally without going into fast startup mode. I do this sometimes to freshen things up.
Why don't you turn it off on your PC as well ? From what I've seen, it seems there are only downsides by keeping it on. Having a freshly booted Windows every time your start your computer is ideal. I'm not criticizing and I respect your choice, I'm just curious ;)
 

plat

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Sep 13, 2018
1,793
Fast Startup kind of scares me; it's like I flipped a switch and the desktop just comes on. I'm like: please don't crash, please don't crash🙏. Aside from physical Windows issues, I'm just uncomfortable with it enabled. Boot only takes like 8 or 9 seconds longer with it OFF anyway. Plus, I got lots of disk space back when I removed hibernate.sys.

Hmmm, I thought Fast Startup in theory would be more beneficial with older hardware with a hard disk drive as the boot drive. Is this wrong?
 

LASER_oneXM

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Feb 4, 2016
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i also deactivated Fast Startup on all my Win10 and Win8.1 machines. Its a recommendation i know since Win8.1. Several years ago I had some few BSOD on a brand new Win8.1 Laptop and i received the recommendation (among other tips) to disable the Fast Startup option in windows to avoid further issues. AFAIK the Fast Startup feature (in Power Options) could also lead to problems with Win10 installations.
 

TairikuOkami

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May 13, 2017
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download.png

Fast startup is literally designed to break Windows, just to boot a few secs faster. Instead of closing all problematic processes and starting them again, it simply puts computer to sleep and then wakes it up with the same issue at hand. Actually you are supposed to restart not shutdown, restart ignores the fast startup. Still, it broke the ultimate fix. 🙃

 

SeriousHoax

Level 47
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Mar 16, 2019
3,630
Why don't you turn it off on your PC as well ? From what I've seen, it seems there are only downsides by keeping it on. Having a freshly booted Windows every time your start your computer is ideal. I'm not criticizing and I respect your choice, I'm just curious ;)
I haven't faced any problem yet with fast startup on this PC so haven't disabled it. But seeing everyone's comment here, I may reconsider it. Very helpful thread btw (y)
 

LASER_oneXM

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...howtogeek.com: Pros and Cons of Windows 10s Fast Startup" Mode

Windows 10’s Fast Startup (called Fast Boot in Windows 8) works similarly to the hybrid sleep mode of previous versions of Windows. By saving the operating system state to a hibernation file, it can make your computer boot up even faster, saving valuable seconds every time you turn your machine on.

Fast Startup is enabled by default in a clean Windows installation on most laptops and some desktops, but it doesn’t always work perfectly, and there are some downsides that might convince you to turn it off. Here’s what you need to know.

Why You Might Want to Disable Fast Startup​

Sounds awesome, right? Well, it is. But Fast Startup also has its problems, so you should take the following caveats into consideration before enabling it:
  • When Fast Startup is enabled, your computer doesn’t perform a regular shut down. Since applying new system updates often requires a shutdown, you may not be able to apply updates and turn your computer off. Restart is unaffected, though, so it still performs a full cold shutdown and restart of your system. If a shutdown doesn’t apply your updates, a restart still will.
  • Fast Startup can interfere slightly with encrypted disk images. Users of encryption programs like TrueCrypt have reported that encrypted drives they had mounted before shutting down their system were automatically remounted when starting back up. The solution for this is just to manually dismount your encrypted drives before shutting down, but it is something to be aware of. (This doesn’t affect the full disk encryption feature of TrueCrypt, just disk images. And BitLocker users shouldn’t be affected.)
 
Last edited:

LASER_oneXM

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Feb 4, 2016
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In UEFI Firmware Setting you can also find an option called "Fast Boot". Here is an tutorial i found on teforums.com with some informations :
source: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials...fast-boot-uefi-firmware-settings-windows.html

The Fast Boot feature for UEFI motherboards has a Fast and Ultra Fast option that allows your PC to boot much faster than normal.
See also: Using Fast Boot in Intel Visual BIOS

Fast Boot Options:
Fast


Ultra Fast
This tutorial will show you how to enable or disable Fast Boot in your UEFI firmware settings for Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10.


____EDIT____


The wording of your question is confusing. I will try to answer what I think you asked. Fast boot in the OS is kind of a hybrid shutdown. So when you fast boot some things are already loaded. Fast boot in BIOS skips some of the steps that involve verifying the hardware and such.
 

bayasdev

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Sep 10, 2015
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Indeed, e.g: Windows freezes SSD during hibernation so we can't write data directly from another operating system like Linux when the disk is frozen. For dual booting turning off "fast startup" and setting time to UTC mode are a must.

I've also noticed that Windows 10 uses less RAM after a clean boot.
 

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