Windows 7 / Getting Started

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Shut Down Options

When you shut down your computer, all open files are saved to the hard disk, the contents of the memory are saved to the hard disk or discarded as appropriate, the page file is cleared, and all open applications are closed. The active user is then logged out of Windows and the computer is turned off. Of course, this might take a minute or two, depending on the computer and the applications that the computer was running at the time of shutdown.

Windows 7 offers two other modes besides shutdown. When you hibernate your computer, the system state, along with the contents of the system memory, is saved to a file (hiberfil.sys) on the hard disk and the computer is shut down. The hiberfil.sys file is same size as the amount of physical memory (RAM). No power is required to maintain this state because the data is stored on the hard disk. You can then continue where you left off within a short time.

Sleep is a power-saving state that saves work and open programs to memory. To maintain the contents of memory while the computer is in sleep mode, the system still consumes a small amount of power. The advantage of Sleep mode is that you can continue where you left off, typically within a few seconds.

Hybrid sleep, a combination of sleep and hibernate, saves your work to your hard disk and puts your mobile PC into a power-saving state. If you suffer a power failure on a computer when it is in a hybrid sleep state, your data is not lost. Hybrid sleep is turned off by default on mobile PCs.

When you click the power button on the Start menu, Windows 7 automatically goes into Sleep mode. If your battery power is low, Windows 7 hibernates the computer.

In addition to power plans, you can configure what the computer does when you press the power button or when you close the lid (on a laptop computer). You can also tell Windows 7 whether to prompt for a user password when returning to its power-on state. You can also control button actions depending on whether the computer is plugged in or running on battery power.

By default, hibernate is enabled. If you want to disable hibernate and remove the hiberfil.sys file on the C drive, you use the following command:

powercfg -hibernate off