For the last couple of years, I've been relying on hibernation for my PC almost every single day. The convenience was undeniable: closing everything down across all my virtual desktops only to reopen it all the next morning never made much sense. So for the longest time, I rarely ever shut down or rebooted my PC apart from Windows updates. But then I had to stop because of what daily hibernating was doing to my system. And honestly, I'm glad I did. Shutting down my PC every night has ended up being a much bigger improvement than I expected.
The Convenience of Hibernation
Hibernation used to feel like one of those perfect features. It gave me the best of both worlds: no battery drain like a full shutdown, while still letting me resume work exactly where I left off, similar to sleep mode. For a while, it worked great. Every evening I would close my laptop lid or select Hibernate from the Power menu, and the next morning everything was exactly as I left it—all my open applications, browser tabs, and project files ready to go. It saved me a few minutes every day, which added up over weeks and months.
The Downsides I Started Noticing
But gradually, I began to see a pattern. Every 7 to 10 days, my PC would start feeling slower and less responsive. At first, it was barely noticeable—a slight lag when switching between windows, a bit of hesitation when opening files. But then it would get worse. Eventually, the entire system would freeze out of nowhere, forcing me to do a hard reset. That often meant losing unsaved work, which was frustrating.
Another issue was the size of the hibernation file. Windows saves the entire system state to a file called hiberfil.sys, and it can be huge. In my case, it was close to 10GB. On a modern SSD, that's still a significant chunk of storage that could be put to better use. More importantly, modern SSDs have made the speed advantage of hibernation almost irrelevant. When I used to hibernate, I thought I was saving time, but my PC already boots up incredibly fast—often in under 10 seconds. So the few seconds I saved by resuming from hibernation were negligible compared to the problems it caused.
How Regular Shutdowns Solved My Problems
Once I started shutting down my PC every night, those random slowdowns completely disappeared. I can confidently credit regular shutdowns for this improvement because I didn't change anything else about my setup. My PC felt cleaner and snappier—Windows just felt 'fresh' every morning. The reason is simple: with hibernation, the system never gets a full reset. Background processes, temporary glitches, memory leaks—they all accumulate day after day. A full shutdown clears all of that, giving the PC a clean slate.
There was another side benefit: Windows updates became much less annoying. When I relied on hibernation, Windows would sometimes force an update in the middle of the day or first thing in the morning. Now, updates usually install during shutdown, so they're far less disruptive. I schedule my shutdowns for a time when I know I won't need the PC, and updates just happen quietly in the background.
Of course, I still use hibernation occasionally. It's not a bad feature by any means. When I know I'll need to jump back into a large project and want everything exactly as I left it, hibernation is still handy. But I no longer treat it as the default option every single day.
The Problem with Fast Startup
However, shutting down your PC doesn't always mean Windows does a full shutdown. That's because of a feature called Fast Startup, which is enabled by default. During a shutdown, Fast Startup saves part of the system state to disk so Windows can quickly reload it on the next boot. In a way, it's like a lighter version of hibernation. While faster boot times sound great, Fast Startup prevents your PC from fully clearing bugs and memory issues. Some underlying problems simply carry over between sessions.
To get the full benefit of a shutdown, I disabled Fast Startup. The setting is in Control Panel under Power Options > Choose what the power buttons do > Change settings that are currently unavailable, then uncheck Turn on fast startup. After doing that, my system started feeling even more pristine after each boot. But I also made other optimizations: I reduced the number of startup programs and disabled unnecessary background services.
How Windows Helps Restart Apps After Shutdown
One thing that made shutting down regularly much more convenient is Windows' restartable apps feature. It allows the OS to restore supported apps as soon as you sign in after a shutdown or reboot. To enable it, go to Settings > Accounts > Sign-in options and turn on 'Automatically save my restartable apps and restart them when I sign back in.' Not every app supports it, but the ones that do work great. For me, it restores my Edge tabs, File Explorer folders, Notepad, and other compatible applications exactly as I left them.
This feature bridges the gap between the convenience of hibernation and the cleanliness of a full shutdown. I no longer have to manually reopen everything—the system does it for me. That was the main reason I used to avoid shutting down, but now it's no longer an issue.
Beyond the immediate benefits for my own workflow, there's also the matter of system health. Regularly shutting down allows Windows to install updates properly, clear temporary files, and release memory that might be tied up in buggy processes. It also gives the hardware a break. While modern SSDs and CPUs are designed for 24/7 operation, powering down the system reduces wear on components and saves electricity.
In the end, the switch from daily hibernation to daily shutdowns has been transformative. My PC runs more reliably, updates are less intrusive, and I no longer lose work to unexpected freezes. The experience taught me that sometimes the simplest solutions—like turning off your computer at night—can have the most profound impact on day-to-day computing.
Source: MakeUseOf News