Tricks and Tweaks

How to enable missing Hibernate on Windows Vista

October 10, 2008 2:56 pm
slavezero
0 Comments

My friend bought a brand new PC and installed it with Microsoft Vista. When he used his new PC with it’s new operating system he is surprised that the Hibernate option that he always use when he still uses Windows XP is missing.

I’ve explained to him that when you switch to using Vista you may experience the Hibernate option is not available in the Start menu power options menu or the Hibernate option is not available in the Shut Down Windows dialog box. The possible causes are the Disk Cleanup Utility and has been used to delete the Hibernation File Cleaner, the computer does not support the hibernation feature, the hibernation feature is disabled, or the Hybrid Sleep feature is enabled.

My friend then stop and ask WTF! is Hibernate Sleep. OK here is the explanation, the Hybrid Sleep on Windows Vista feature puts the computer to sleep and generates a hibernation file when the user chooses the Sleep option in any of the power option menus. Therefore, Hibernate does not appear as a power option when Hybrid Sleep is enabled.

Here the steps that I suggest to my friend, use the PowerCfg command-line tool to enable the hibernation feature.

Note: If your computer does not support the hibernation feature, you cannot enable the feature.
1. Search for the Command Prompt then right right-click Command Prompt in the Programs list, and then click Run as administrator. User Account Control permission If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type your password or click Continue.

2. At the command prompt, type powercfg /hibernate on.

Follow these steps if you want to determine whether the computer supports the hibernation feature using the PowerCfg command-line tool.

1. Search for the Command Prompt then right right-click Command Prompt in the Programs list, and then click Run as administrator.User Account Control permission If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type your password, or click Continue.

2. At the command prompt, type powercfg /a.
The PowerCfg tool generates output that resembles the following:

The following sleep states are available on this system: Standby ( S1 S3 ) Hibernate Hybrid Sleep
The following sleep states are not available on this system: Standby (S2)
The system firmware does not support this standby state.

The sleep states that are listed as available and as not available vary, depending on your computer’s hardware.