Hibernating or Full Shutdown that is the question :-)

[Pawelk198604]

I recently almost did not turn off my computer in the classic sense of the word it hibernates simply because the power is turned on again, all four of my programs and applications are ready to use and do not need to run them again

I wonder whether the use of hibernation, not harm the computer?

[magico13]

I personally just put my desktop to sleep if I know I'm going to be using it later that day or the next day, but I try to shutdown all the way if it's going to be a while. Then when I turn it back on everything is in a clean state. I've got an SSD and a pretty fast system, so boot times for the system and applications aren't long enough to warrant hibernating to me. But that's all just personal preference. I'm sure there will be some good posts about the merits of each.

[cantab]

Call me old fashioned but I prefer to truly shut down. Though sleep mode is useful if I want to nap or something.

[Aghanim]

Windows 8 and above 'shutdown' isn't actual shutdown, but it closes all the programs and hibernates it

[magnemoe]

Windows 8 and above 'shutdown' isn't actual shutdown, but it closes all the programs and hibernates it

So then you start it up you might have to reboot it as it requested an reboot?

Hibernate don't hurt your computer. Running the computer for months without rebooting don't hurt it, servers do.

Waiting for long after an reboot requests while installing other programs in the weeks after might, or more accurately it will be hard to find an restore point.

[PB666]

I personally just put my desktop to sleep if I know I'm going to be using it later that day or the next day, but I try to shutdown all the way if it's going to be a while. Then when I turn it back on everything is in a clean state. I've got an SSD and a pretty fast system, so boot times for the system and applications aren't long enough to warrant hibernating to me. But that's all just personal preference. I'm sure there will be some good posts about the merits of each.

same @#$% (<more letters added to satisfy the machine)

[Superfluous J]

I shut down my computer once a year whether it needs it or not.

Though it spends 99% of the time that I'm not using it in sleep mode.

[longbyte1]

I've always used just regular shut down, but recently I've started hibernating my computer to cut down on constant disk activity on startup, though I shut down my computer when Patch Tuesday rolls around.

Shutting down occasionally helps keep Windows sane, from my experience.