Hibernate your computer.

Many a times we fall into a situation where we instantly have to turn off our computer. I fall too often in such a situation when my mom starts yelling at me and asks me to turn off the computer. This frustrates a lot of people as you have to stop whatever you are doing or have to save every open file. This becomes a tedious task when there are a lots of applications open. In worse situations you have to close everything without saving your files just adding to your frustration

I always knew what hibernate is, but never used it until this day when I was writing posts for my blogs, my registry editor was open I had opened a few tabs in my browser and suddenly my mom asked me to shutdown my computer. I got really annoyed I was about to turn off my computer without saving any of the contents. It was at this time when my eyes fell on hibernate icon in the turn off menu, looking at which I just smiled to myself saying, "Why did I not think about this?".

What is the Hibernate mode in a computer? What does it do?

The Hibernate mode feature for windows saves up all the currently open applications and hence you don't have to manually save all the programs, not only this but when you turn on your computer for the next time it shows you everything just as you left it. This saves a lot of time when you start your computer again.

How does the hibernation mode work?

The RAM(Random Access Memory) holds content till it is in power ON state and contents goes off as it is switched OFF. When you hibernate your computer contents of RAM are copied to the hard disk. When you turn on your system the next time, those contents are written back to the RAM from your hard disk and you get the same working space you left.



Before trying Hibernation, you need to enable it.

Go to:

>> Control panel

>> Look for 'Performance and Maintenance'

>> At the bottom find 'Power Options'

>> This will open the 'Power Options Properties' dialog box

>> Click on the 'Hibernate tab'

>>Tick the 'Enable hibernation' box

>> Click 'Apply'


To set your computer into the hibernate mode all you have to do is, go to your Turn off menu form the start option on your task bar and then select hibernate.

If it doesn't show the hibernate option then press 'Shift' and the 'Stand by' option will become 'Hibernate'

Benefits of hibernation:

>> You get to resume from where you left even when you had turned off your computer.

>> If your computer takes ages to boot up, then this is going to decrease your boot up time as it doesn't have to boot the Operating System as it wasn't turned off.

>> All your web2.0 applications that are loaded in your browser remains as it is. For example: G mail, Online photo editing tools etc (No need of reloading).

Disadvantage:

>> As the contents of the RAM are copied to the hard disk, the Hibernation Mode reserves space on your hard disk as much as that of your RAM. (Now you know why it was asking for space while enabling hibernation)

This is very helpful for dialup users who can’t afford to loose time while waiting for such heavy applications to load again.