957MB Vista Question!

In XP, I used to use 'Hibernation' ("Hibernate") quite a bit, and it (seemed) to work well. Now in Vista, it's called "Sleep", and it seems useless (that is unless I have some danged box somewhere checked or unchecked, that I'm not aware of??). When I bring the PC out of "Sleep", it returns to where I left off all right - but the page has "Stopped", and I have to close it, and restart, just as if I was coming out of a normal "Shut Down" or "Restart"(?!?).

I'm not at all interested in wasting the 957MB that "Sleep" uses, if it's not going to work.

Any ideas?

 

sleep loads session information to the RAM

hibernate, loads it to the HD

meaning sleep is faster, and uploads the information on resume yet if there were power failure you would lose your current session

other wise im not 100% clear what you are asking

 

Thank you. What I'm asking is: why do the pages have to be reloaded when I come out of sleep/hibernate (?), that wasn't the case for me in XP. I mean, fully half of the reason I hibernate (or "Sleep"), is for speed of getting the PC up & running - and it's lost at the point when I have to close my browser, and re-open or restart it. In other words, when I would resume a session with XP, it went right to where I left-off, BUT the difference was, pages were "fresh", or automatically RE-freshed. In Vista, I have to close the pages, then restart them (re-open them) all over again, and wait for them to reload, when I come out of Sleep.

 

are you talking about web pages?

 

Yes, they (web pages) are "Stopped" now when I come out of "Sleep". That was not how it was with XP, when I came out of "Hibernate".

 

That is probably due to the browsers refreshing after being loaded from the hibernation file. Sleep in Vista is not an off state like hibernation is.

Sleep is a low power state. The machine is still on, but all software activity is COMPLETELY stopped. Its mostly useful for laptops, but I use it on my desktop as well.

FWIW, Linux works the exact same way. Nothing refreshes on a website.

You can set yourt browser to automatically refresh tabs now and then, depending on the browser. Maybe thats your answer.

 

Vista also can use hybrid sleep. In the event of a power failure, your contents are still saved to the hard disk. Sleep doesn't need any hard disk space, unless hybrid sleep is being used.

 

Wow - now I'm even further confused (lol). I suppose I'm using "Hybrid Sleep" (though I've never seen anything that mentions the word "Hybrid") because when I look in Windows "Disc Cleanup", it reports "957 MB" being used for "Hibernation".

So it sounds as if there is no way to enable Vista to 'restart' web pages or 'automatically refresh' web pages when I come out of "Sleep" (?). My Vista "Disc Cleanup" says if I 'remove the Hibernation File" (tick the "Hibernation File Cleaner" box) that it will "disable Hibernation".

Now I'm not sure whether we're talking about: 1. "Sleep", 2. "Hybrid Sleep", or 3. "Hibernation" (three [3] different things?!?). Kind of confusing - isn't it. And I'm certainly not interested in using all that RAM (that's nearly 1GB, isn't it!?!) if the thing isn't going to work like it did in XP.

I'd do a screen-shot, if only I could figure-out how to do that.

 

Type snip into the start, search box for screenshots.

Not that it matters, I know what you speak of.

Hybrid sleep is sleep, + hibernation for backup.
Sleep is a lower power state, contents saved to ram. No software runs during this time, and most hardware doesn't either.
Hibernation is saving contents of ram to a file and shutting the machine off.

Have you tried hibernation to see if it works better for you? If you delete the hibernation file, it definately breaks hybrid sleep, probably hibernation too.

 

Thanks. I do appreciate your time, energy and patience.

I understand about the "power" (electric) grid differences ("low power" vs. "off") - my desire is to have Vista work as XP did (does). I see nothing about "Hybrid" - anywhere - and I am not certain how to make it "Hibernate" as I was able to with XP. It seems the only choice I have (can see), is for "Sleep" (though it is using a file of "957MB" of space - so it must be doing the Hybrid thing?).

Could it be because I only have Vista Home Basic, it won't do all three functions? It definitely is going to sleep, and Windows is reporting a file 957MB full of "the state of your computer as it enters hibernation".

 

Look here. See the arrow you click on? Hibernation is an option.

 

I see yours (thank you again) - and mine has all of the same options, EXCEPT "Hibernate".

Maybe this is because I have "Home Basic"?

 

Nah, it should be there.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929658

Go through this.

 

Thanks again - I'll check-out the link and post back here with the results as soon as I am able.

 

The Hibernate function is not enabled by default on desktops in Vista. It is normally reserved for laptops

If you really must have hibernate you need to open the
Power Options Control Panel

(go to the control panel and select power options)

select system settings
select advanced

 

Power options just takes you to the plans.

Hibernation is enabled by default on all machines.

Are you thinking of XP?

This is an honest question, because aside from CLI, I do not know to enable, disable it.

 

Hi Addy,

Well no actually it did not come enabled on my vista tower. I don't like hibernation and always recommend turning it off so I have not enabled it.

A direct quote from the Microsoft Vista Resource Kit

"Sleep is a new power state that combines the quick resume time of standby (by keeping memory active in the computer) with the data protection benefits of hibernate (by storing a copy of memory to hard disk in case power is lost)............
..............
...................

Users can always use sleep without needing to understand the differences between standby and hibernate.

For more information about sleep, read chapter 16 "

chapter 16 page 575 says

" A new Sleep mode called hybrid sleep is availabe. It combines the benefits of Standby and Hibernation.................Hybrid sleep is enabled by default on Windows Vista desktop computers but disabled on laptops."

Chapter 16 then goes on to describe in excruciating detail various quiescent modes, incliding hibernation, accesible by shutting the lid or other selections on laptops.

If anyone is really interested I will take some screen shots of the relevant control panel boxes.

 

Screenshots would be helpful.

I still have not found any way to enable hibernation other than the CLI. I checked my desktop. Hibernation is definately there, and I never turned it on. I will not that its not showing up where it does on my laptop though. I can set my power button (by modifying my power plan) and the button on the Start menu for such a beast though.

 

Well, I just went ahead and disabled the booger. Simple enough, just tick the box in Disc Cleanup to empty the file, and it disables it - automatically. Using that many MB's (975) is too many, in my humble opinion, for something that doesn't seem to do much. I don't know, I might be sorry if I have a power-outage, but I suppose I'll just have to deal with that if the time ever comes.

Thanks to everyone for the help!

g ...

 

I have received a pm on this subject, unfortunately the sender does not receive pms himself so I cannot reply that way. So here is my reply as it is relevant to the thread.

Thanks for the interest, Mark. Since you are polite and I'm sure you are quite sincere it would be better if these comments were posted in open forum for all to see.

However nothing is as simple as the absolutes stated either by me or you.

It is up to the (IT department of) the User or the original manufacturer of pre-installed systems to establish how a pc is configured.

Microsoft provide a slew of preset power control profiles within Vista for the user to choose and configure. They also provide many additional ones via a special programming tool called powercfg.exe.

They also make the recommendations I posted. Some manufacturers and IT departments choose to follow them some don't.

 

I think some people here are confusing enabled/disabled with shown/not shown.

My desktop, with a system builder license, has hibernation enabled, but it doesn't show in that little arrow thingy, like my HP laptop does. I can still use hibernate though.

That was my point of that all machines w/ Vista ship with hibernation enabled, which MS does not deny, bur rather seems to confirm. Installing the OS retail results in the same, UNLESS your machine does not support hibernation.

The only way to enable it if it is disabled, is to use the CLI with admin rights, and powercfg.

powercfg -h on =hibernation enabled
powercfg -h off =hibernation disabled

I still to date do not see a way to enable/disable hibernation via the GUI. I do see a way to change the function of my power button or shut down button on my start menu to hibernate.

I think it should also be noted the error in the RK that states:
"
"Sleep is a new power state that combines the quick resume time of standby (by keeping memory active in the computer) with the data protection benefits of hibernate (by storing a copy of memory to hard disk in case power is lost)............"

That is not sleep. That is hybrid sleep. Sleep will not do that if the hibernation file has been deleted, which disables the hibernation portion of hybrid sleep.

 

This is the point of an open adult discussion, we can all learn something.

As noted earlier I don't use/advise standby modes so have not tried them in Vista. So I could be wrong
(perish the thought that Microsoft could be wrong roflmao )
about some of this.

I will have a look at the screens and report back.

 

Lets start with this screen.

 

You misunderstood me. The only thing you can do there is configure hibernation for certain actions.

Im talking about when it is truly disabled. Not hidden.

Edit:

I found the answer I was looking for. While I assumed that powercfg would add the option, indeed it does not.

In the power plan options, set hybrid sleep to 'Never', and the hibernation option appears when you click the arrow, like I did on page 1.

 

Of course, for the OP to utilize this, hibernation must be re-enabled via the above command.

 

Seems to me that these are the settings that Glenn, the original poster, needs to access to sort his query and turn hibernation back on.

It also seems to me that the difference between setting hibernation to 'never' and removing the option entirely from the user - which I think you would need a group policy statement to do - is moot.

The code is still present in the Vista installation so could still be reactivated, in principle.