If you have bought a Windows 8 PC or installed Windows 8 on your old PC, then you must have noted that it starts up a little bit faster than the earlier versions of Windows. This is because of the Fast Startup feature in Windows 8 which is a setting that helps your PC start up faster after shutdown. Windows does this by saving the loaded system information to a file upon shutdown. When you start your PC again, Windows reloads that system information from the file to resume your PC instead of restarting it. This results in very quick and fast startup times in Windows 8. Fast Startup is turned on in Windows 8 by default. But if you have a smaller hard disk and are having trouble with available space, then you can turn off this feature.
Here is how you can turn off or turn on the Fast Startup in Windows 8:
- Press the Administrator hotkey Win + X and select Control Panel from the menu that appears.
- In the Control Panel, open the Power Options section and then click on the Choose what the power buttons do as shown in the following screenshot:
- Click on Change settings that are unavailable in the next window that shows up.
- This would allow you to change the settings for some features that you could not earlier. Scroll down in the same window and you would find a new checkbox labeled Turn on fast startup as shown in the following screenshot:
- If you want to turn on the Fast Startup feature, you should check this checkbox. If you want to turn off the Fast Startup, then you should un-check this checkbox.
- Click on the Save Changes button to save the settings.You need to shut down and then start your PC again for fast startup to take effect.