Windows 8/8.1 isn’t just about Start screen, apps store, and lock screen. The super-fast boot process is one of the first things that you notice when you install or upgrade to Windows 8/8.1. Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 boot significantly faster when compared to Windows 7 and previous versions of Windows operating system, thanks to the newly introduced Hybrid boot (aka fast start up).
The Hybrid boot, turned on by default in Windows 8 and Windows 8.1, is completely different from Hibernation and Sleep mode. When you perform a shut down on a Hybrid or fast boot enabled Windows 8/8.1 PC, Windows saves the kernel session and device drivers to the disk. And when you turn the PC on, Windows loads these small files.
But then there might be times when you want to perform a full shutdown or cold boot. For instance, you might want to perform a cold boot after installing a new hardware or updating device drivers.
Of course, you can turn the Hybrid boot feature off by disabling fast start up, perform a cold boot by restarting your PC, or perform a full shut down by executing shutdown /s /f /t 0 via the Command Prompt, but how to perform a full shutdown in Windows 8.1 without turning off or disabling fast start up or launching Command Prompt?
It turns out that on a fast boot or hybrid boot enabled Windows 8.1 PC, the Shut down option in the Charms bar performs a hybrid shut down, whereas the Shut down option in the Win+X menu (the menu that appears when you right-click on the Start button) performs a full shut down.
In other words, if the fast boot is enabled on your Windows 8.1 machine and you want to perform a full shut down, simply open the Charms bar, click Settings to reveal the Settings charm, click Power and then click Shut down. That’s it!
How to check if the last boot was Hybrid boot or cold boot:
In order to check the type of last boot, you can execute the following PowerShell code:
Step 1: Open Windows PowerShell. To do that, type PowerShell in the Start screen and then press Enter key. You can also right-click on the Start button on the taskbar and then click PowerShell or PowerShell (admin) to open the same from the desktop environment.
Step 2: Copy and paste the following code into the PowerShell window:
$boot = Get-WinEvent -ProviderName Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-boot -MaxEvents 10 | Where-Object {$_.message -like “The boot type*”}
$boot| format-list
Boot type 0×1 indicates a hybrid boot, 0×0 indicates a cold boot (full shut down), and 0x2 indicates a resume from hibernation. That’s it!
Thanks Verboon.
