Do NOT Shut Down Your Computer! (here's why)

We've all seen the buttons for Shut down and Restart in Windows. But have you ever wondered what is the difference between a "shut down" and a "restart"? Or why a Windows PC boots up really fast from a shutdown but takes longer after a restart? I'll tell you why in this video.

00:00 Why Shut Down Doesn't Actually Shut Down Your Computer
02:46 How to Turn Off Fast Startup

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#windows #windows10 #windows11

[absolutelynot]

**finishes watching video**
**shuts down computer**

[johnswoodgadgets]

If I shut it down it is because I want the damned thing off. Not sleeping, not running background, not updating, off. Dead. Out of commission. Lifeless. Like my coffee pot or my porch light. I am furious that there is such a thing as an electrical device that you have to ask permission from the device to just throw the switch. I rather enjoy turning it completely off, if for no other reason than I want to illustrate to all the AI out there that I am in charge, and until I say otherwise, they will just have to get along without me. End of rant.

[tzee]

Good video, I kinda figured this out myself from experience but I'm sure lots of people don't know. for example if you do lots of settings changes, shutdown, have a power cut the next day and all your settings will revert back. so doing a restart will also save any changes.

[juliangerber]

From a hardware perspective, a full shutdown, or even a hibernate, is a much better option than leaving your computer on or in sleep mode. Some odd hardware states only clear after power down, and computer life is enhanced if it's actually off when not being used. Not to mention saving power, there are some odd cases where silicon or batteries can benefit from being fully off. And if you live in an area with frequent power outages, lightning, or lots of heavy industrial power users, then the more off, the better.

[deldiacono]

Perfectly valid for computers running old, almost extinct HDD's, now with SSD's without moving parts and increased malware and hacking activities, the safest way to protect your computers is to shutdown it every single time you are getting away from it.

[FistandFootMartialArts]

This explains A LOT. I've wondered why sometimes, after shutdown, Firefox wants to "restore previous session". And other thing. So BIG THX!!!💛💛💛

[avengersseven]

"Hibernate" option slows PC. I used to have Windows Xp and back in the days, the games had lagging and slow frame rates when PC was awaken from Hibernation. For Windows 10 If someone wants to kill any stuck application with shutdown or restart, chose option - you can simply log off. It stops all software applications. It works for me in Windows 10.

[katycatjulius]

An easy way to see whether fast startup is enabled is: go to task manager, go to the performance tap and there choose processor and then look at the time active for it, if this shows days instead of hours and you are sure you turned your pc off then it's probadly turned on as when your computer is actually turned of then the processor active timer in task manager will start counting the first minutes

[bikeny]

I found out about the setting last year when I kept shutting down the system but whenever I ran the 'bginfo' program it still showed the last boot date/time. Drove me crazy. That being said, you did a great job of explaining the situation to folks. Now a sub.

[voicetube]

That right clicking the Windows icon for faster shutdown was very helpful, thank you!

[raygaither]

Thank you for this info. I am a sql server DBA senior consultant and I did not know about fast startup. I am old school and still thought shut down was the move. Never too old to learn!

[robertrdell]

There's another reason you should shutdown instead of restart. Removing power from the machine will reset the electronics to a default condition ($00 - $FF) instead of random data which restart does. This is required when you get a stuck bit somewhere in your machine and still have problems after restarting it. Hope this helped.

[NickEGRE]

Nice tutorial and presentation! You can also do a completely clean Shut Down (clears RAM - Hibernation file - Drive cashes) by simultaneously hold the Shift key when clicking Shut Down, or when pressing the Power-On/Shut Down button if configured so. This way, there's no need to change power properties/fast startup settings nor Re-starting and then Shut Down as mentioned. With Shift it just "sweeps" everything during Shut Down, thus skips fast startup once. Next turn-on will be a clean-fresh startup, so boot time will take a little longer.

[cwjwh]

Thanks!

Much more clear than reading the instructions!

[yusufdavid]

The way you explain is very good. How you arrange sentences, pronunciation, video editing, everything is very clear and good. I love it.

[wowJhil]

I learn about this long ago and inactivated it. The amount of problems you can get just from not having a fresh start is more then enough reasons for doing so. And I think it's kinda incredible that on a work computer like I have, they have this activated.

[juanc.duartea.]

Nice tip. Specially if you dual boot with Linux. When you shutdown your PC in Windows and then start your PC using Linux, the hibernation files will block Windows partitions and you can only use them read-only mode in Linux. When you restart the PC in Windows and then log in to Linux, you have not this problem and you can write in Windows partitions. Disabling fast start mode in Windows you don't have this problem anymore.

[tallen]

Thank you! I try to learn something new every day. I never knew the difference between shutdown and restart. Thanks for my new knowledge!

[ABLwAmazing]

Better advice is to just disable fast boot. It's largely redundant since most consumer PCs have SSDs.

[DDuMas]

I've been disabling "fast start up" for years. My computer has tech from 2012 (i7 3770, SSD, DDR 3 etc) and it's still fast enough that such a feature is redundant. Plus, it's much better to fresh boot and have all the drivers launch fresh. I'd rather take a bit longer booting and have a more stable session on my computer.