Windows 10: Disabling Fast Startup on AVD

Afternoon all,I am having some issues with some assistive technology and the developer of the assistive tech has suggested that turning off Fast Startup may resolve the issue. I am connecting to a Windows 11 Azure Virtual Desktop via the Microsoft Remote app and the IT team cannot find the Fast Startup setting on the AVD. I am just wondering if it exists on AVD and if it does, where it would be?Thanks!Olly

:)

 

Is fast startup bad?

Hi Ariq,

I am Dave, I will help you with this.

The way fast startup works is, the contents of your RAM is written to the system drive, then on startup that is read back form the drive into RAM.

In reality if you have an SSD, there is very little difference in the startup time when Fast Startup is enabled or disabled.

Since you have an SSD, I would suggest it is best to disable Fast Startup, that would reduce the read/write count on the SSD and should prolong the lifespan of the SSD.

 

Turn off Fast Startup

Hi Michel,

Please take note that you must be signed in as an Administrator to be able to turn fast startup on or off. Fast startup requires that
hibernate be enabled. If you disable hibernate, then it will also disable fast startup.

Steps on how to manually turn off the Fast Startup

• Open the Control Panel (icons view), and click on the
  Power Options icon.
• Click/tap on the Choose what the power buttons do link on the left side
• Click/tap on the Change settings that are currently unavailable link at the top
• If prompted by UAC, click/tap on Yes

If the option for turning off the Fast Startup is not available, then changing the registry key maybe required.

Note: Please note that configuring Registry key requires extra care as it might cause another issue with your system.

• Type RegEdit in the search field on your Task bar
  and open the Registry tool.On the left pane of the Registry window, locate
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Power.
• On the right pane of the said location, check if the HiberbootEnabled
  is available. If not, we need to create it by clicking the right key of the mouse, select New
  and click on DWORD (32 bit) Value.
• Replace it with the word HiberbootEnabled under Name
  column.Data value must be zero (0) that will represent as the Fast Startup is turned off.
• Restart the computer for the changes to take effect.

Steps on how to disable UAC in Windows 10

• Type UAC in the search field on your Task bar. (If the search field isn't visible, right-click the
  Start button and choose Search.)
• Click Change User Account Control settings in the search results.
• To turn UAC off, drag the slider down to Never notify and click
  OK.
• You may be prompted to confirm your selection or enter an administrator password.
• Reboot your computer for the changes to take effect.

We look forward to your response.

 

Fast Startup - How to disable if it's causing problems

Technical Level : Intermediate

Summary
How to disable Fast Startup on your Windows 8/8.1 OS if it's causing problems regarding shutting down, etc.

Details
In this article we're going to discuss how to disable Fast Startup. Why? In many systems it is known to cause issues with shutting down, restarting, etc. For example, on my system after I would shut down my system, it wouldn't fully shut down and would remain
in a hibernation state instead. After I went ahead and disabled Fast Startup, I was able to successfully shut down.

There are multiple ways to troubleshoot an issue shutting down, such as generating an energy report and viewing it to see what driver and/or device is holding up the shut down. Alternatively, another way to solve it (permanently in case yours happens frequently...
like mine did) is to disable Fast Startup. If you're on a desktop with
decent hardware, then disabling Fast Startup really won't make too much of a noticeable difference. Besides, in my case when I wake up in the morning, I turn on my PC and walk away to complete my morning routine before getting on the PC. With that said, in
my case, it's not entirely necessary.

To expand on what exactly Fast Startup is, Fast Startup is a hybrid combination of a cold startup and a wake-from-hibernation startup. Frequently, kernel-mode device drivers need to distinguish Fast Startups from wake-from-hibernation so that that their devices
behave as users expect. This is exactly where my issue stemmed from, because my webcam drivers evidently couldn't distinguish properly.

During a cold startup, the boot loader constructs a kernel memory image by loading the sections of the Windows kernel file into memory and linking them. Next, the kernel configures core system functions, enumerates the devices attached to the computer, and
loads drivers for them.

In contrast, a fast startup simply loads the hibernation file (Hiberfil.sys) into memory to restore the previously saved image of the Windows kernel and loaded drivers. A fast startup tends to take significantly less time than a cold startup.

More information (and much more in-depth)
here.

Disabling Fast Startup

1. Navigate to Start by either clicking the Start
   icon or hitting the Windows key.
2. In the Search bar, type Power to bring up various Power Options.
3. Select Change what the power buttons do.
4. See the below image:

If you have UAC enabled (enabled by default unless you disable it manually), before un-checking
Turn on fast startup, you'll need to select Change settings that are currently unavailable. Once you do that, you will be able to successfully un-check
Turn on fast startup.

After you've unchecked Turn on fast startup, your next shut down will this time
actually shut down the system if you're having the issues described above.

-----------------------------

More troubleshooting information with a different method for those interested on my blog post here -

http://bsodanalysis.blogspot.com/2014/05/fast-startup-how-to-disable-if-its.html