ITsVISTA Tip 21: Enable and Disable Hibernation in Vista via Command Line

January 20th, 2007 · 11 Comments · 10,757 views
Tags: Configuration, Disable, Enable, Hibernation, Powercfg, Tips

Tips If you hate waiting for Vista to load when you start your computer, hibernation is one way to significantly speed up boot. It basically copies your memory to disk and then shuts down. When you start the computer again, it just loads your RAM from disk, and you’re up and running where you left off previously. The downside of this is that a file must be created on your hard drive to hold this memory, and the file will be as large as the amount of RAM you have. On my computer that’s 2GB, and if you’ve got 4GB of RAM, well, you do the math! If you don’t use hibernate, you can turn it off and save yourself this disk space.

Microsoft has a Knowledge Base article on this topic, probably because there isn’t a GUI method, it must be done from the command line. It also requires Elevated Privileges, so you either need to run the command prompt as an administrator, or use a shortcut, mentioned on the Vista Clues website.

Disable Hibernation in Vista

To disable hibernation, simply click on your Start menu, and type powercfg.exe /hibernate off in your search box. Then press Ctrl+Shift+Enter, which will run the command line you typed in as an administrator. If you have UAC active, it will prompt you to approve the elevation of privileges, and you’ll probably see a quick flash of a command line window appearing and then disappearing. Your work is done!
powercfg.exe /hibernate off

Enable Hibernation in Vista

To enable hibernation, simply click on your Start menu, and type powercfg.exe /hibernate on in your search box. Then press Ctrl+Shift+Enter, which will run the command line you typed in as an administrator. If you have UAC active, it will prompt you to approve the elevation of privileges, and you’ll probably see a quick flash of a command line window appearing and then disappearing. Your work is done!
powercfg.exe /hibernate on

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30 Tips for Getting More (or Less) Out of Windows Vista | ITsVISTA

Jan 31, 2007 at 9:27 am

[...] Enable and Disable Hibernation in Vista via Command Line [...]
Robin

May 27, 2007 at 11:32 am

I’m so glad that I came across this site; I have found so many helpful tips that has improved Vista’s performance and speed in only a few minutes. I subscribed to the email notifications of new posts/tips for Vista.
Robert

Jul 20, 2007 at 10:25 am

Thanks! I’ve been racking my brains trying to figure out why I suddenly lost my hibernation option!
Yotam

Jan 8, 2008 at 2:03 pm

hey. its a great site nice work!
I was hoping someone can help me , cause im pretty desprate on that one.

i cant get my PC go to sleep or hibrate on vista ( on xp it works just fine!).
acsually when i tried the tip above than my PC went into hibration and than after 3-4 seconds it wakes up with no reason or errors.
i have core 2 due asus p5b mother board that supports s1\s3 ( whatever that means) ans 2gb ram with vista home primium.

sorry for my broken english.
Joe

Jan 13, 2008 at 12:40 pm

@Yotam: It sounds to me like you have something running that is re-awakening your computer. I’d look at all the software you’ve added to try and determine if any might be trying to do something in the background that would require it to keep running. You should also try disconnecting any peripherals to see if they might be waking the machine via the US port.
Yotam

Jan 14, 2008 at 9:23 am

Thanks Joe. i just installed a clean vista install so i dont think its the programs that re-awakening my pc. i have portable mouse and keyboard. also a genius tablet connected via the usb. i think that is what causing my pc to wake every hibernation.
so thank you. and i’ll bye new peripherals and post here if it works.
Sachin(L2 Dell)

Feb 12, 2008 at 8:57 am

nice work
Sachin(L2 Dell)

Feb 12, 2008 at 8:58 am

nice work…
Rich

Mar 5, 2008 at 1:57 pm

will doing “powercfg.exe /hibernate off” automatically remove the hiberfil.sys from the root of C?

thanks
Steven

Apr 9, 2008 at 10:33 am

I’ve tried this several times but it goes to a Google page.

I’ve also entered “powercfg -h on” into Administrator: Command Prompt but it just goes to a new prompt.

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated. Thanks
Joe

Apr 9, 2008 at 4:54 pm

Typing “powercfg.exe /hibernate off” in the Search box or command prompt opens a web browser window? You can’t be typing it in the correct place.