When you go away from your PC for
a while, your system typically goes into Sleep mode. The
sleep mode saves the current state of your PC (meaning
all the files and programs you’re working on) within the
RAM.
Hibernate mode is similar to
sleep mode, but it extends your battery life by saving
the current state of your system into a file on your
hard drive and then using that to restore your work once
you boot up.
Sleep mode transitions into an idle state, and it seems
that the PC has been powered off, but once you turn on
your PC, you find all of your files and programs
precisely the way you left them. (provided there is no
power cut).
Hibernation mode on Windows does precisely the same, but
it saves the active application instances and files onto
the hard drive in a “Hiberfil.sys” file. Doing so gives
hibernate mode the advantage of retaining the work
environment even if there is a complete power cut.
More importantly, hibernate mode also preserves the
battery as it does not consume system resources to keep
the contents of the RAM alive. While hibernate mode is
not as fast as sleep mode, it is much more efficient in
terms of reliability and effectiveness.
As mentioned above, the Hibernate option is missing from
the Power button within the Start menu.
To enable hibernate,
follow the below steps:
-
Open Control Panel , Click Start >
type control panel
and click Enter
-
Click on Power Options
-
From the left side, click on Choose what the
power button does
-
As you can see, the Hibernate option is unselectable in
this page, to activate its checkbox, click
Change settings that are currently unavailable
-
Select the checkbox Hibernate and
then click Save changes
-
To confirm Hibernate is enabled, click Start >
Power button and you will see the Hibernate option
available
