How to Enable or Disable Fast Startup in Windows 11

How to Enable or Disable Fast Startup in Windows 11 & 10

Fast Startup is a built-in feature in Windows 11 that helps your PC start quicker and resume sleep faster. It does this by saving the kernel session, a small memory snapshot of what was running on your PC before you turned it off.

With Fast Startup enabled, your computer does not perform a regular shutdown. This means that because many updates require a shutdown, you will not be able to apply updates and shut down your computer. Restarting is an option that will make your computer shut down and then reboot. This can be beneficial if you have trouble installing your updates by shutting down the system. However, you may still experience some of the same problems. For example, you might have to perform a shutdown and restart cycle multiple times before your updates are installed correctly, or you may encounter a situation where a hard shutdown is necessary to install the update.

Fast startups, such as Windows hibernation mode, close all the open apps and put the operating system in hibernation. You will notice that when you turn on your computer again, many of the tasks currently running at Startup will occur quickly since they have already been loaded into memory. Fast Startup affects Windows updates. Many never finish the installation unless your PC is shut down completely.

How to Disable Windows Fast Startup

Turning the Fast Startup on or off takes less than a minute. To start, open up the power options by pressing Windows+X or right-clicking the start menu and selecting power options, or head down to the search bar and type "Control Panel" and press enter once the control panel opens, you will find the "Power Options". In the Power Options window, click the option "Choose what the power buttons do.

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Now click "Change settings that are currently unavailable" to change the shutdown settings.

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To disable Fast Startup, please scroll to the bottom of the window and uncheck "Turn on fast startup (recommended)," as well as any other shutdown settings you would like to set. Click on save changes and shut down your system to test and see if Fast Startup is disabled.

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