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Why I Wish I Had Disabled Windows Fast Startup Sooner
In practice, Windows Fast Startup is supposed to be helpful, but after disabling it, a lot of things actually got a little better for my computer. I wish I had turned it off sooner, and for some of you, there are a few reasons you might want to do the same thing.
What Does Windows Fast Startup Do?
Before we talk about why you might want to disable this feature, it helps to understand what it does in the first place. Most people don't even know its running on their PC half the time, since it's usually on by default. Fast startup does exactly what you would expect it to do, helping your PC start faster when you first turn it on. But what's important is how it does this.
Ordinarily, when you shut down the computer, many things happen: Windows logs you off, closes all applications, and completely powers off your device while clearing the system memory. With this type of shutdown, your computer would need to start everything from scratch when you reboot it again. But Fast Startup stops this from happening. Instead of closing out everything, it saves the system state of Windows itself, so you don't need to completely reload the operating system.
It's like a cross between a full shutdown and putting the PC to sleep. That might sound good, but this halfway mix between computer hibernation and full shutdown is actually why Fast Startup can cause trouble for your PC.
Fast Startup Can Stop Restarts From Fixing Problems
When it's time to troubleshoot your PC, there is one thing that everyone recommends trying: restart the computer and hope for the best. This can fix a lot of problems, but Fast Startup can actually prevent a restart from getting the job done. That's because, as mentioned previously, Fast Startup makes your computer boot from a cached state instead of fresh. If that cached state includes something that was the root of your problem in the first place, then a restart won't fix the problem.
Of course, if you feel like this is the source of a problem, you could always turn off Fast Startup temporarily, then turn it back on when you've restarted your PC. But if you want to cut one more layer of troubleshooting complexity from your attempted fixes, it's best to just leave it off entirely.
Fast Startup Can Prevent Driver or System Level Updates
Have you ever been told that your PC needed to be restarted in order for some sort of update to be applied? Well, that means your PC needs a true, complete restart, and Fast Startup can get in the way of that since it boots your computer from a cached state. This doesn't necessarily stop every possible update from taking, but it can get in the way of some updates that just refuse to take without a clean boot from zero.
Personally, I've had issues with some of my drivers applying an update because of this, including my graphics drivers. So if you've been trying to update some drivers to no avail, Fast Startup could be the culprit.
Fast Startup Can Cause Random PC Wakeups
Many a night, I've turned my computer off, only for it to turn itself back on an hour later, driving me nuts. For a long time, I couldn't figure out why this was happening. I played around with all sorts of power settings, but it just seemed to keep happening randomly. Well, it turns out that Fast Startup can be the cause of this as well. This is because Fast Startup controls various power settings and wake timers related to hibernation.
Due to this, Fast Startup can cause unexpected wakeups of your PC, even if you have the lid closed. It can also slightly drain the battery life of the laptop, though you probably won't notice this most of the time.
It's Harder to Access BIOS/UEFI With Fast Startup
Most people don't actually ever need to access their BIOS/UEFI setup menu. However, if you do ever need to access this setup menu, it'll be a lot harder to do so with Fast Startup activated. After all, your window of opportunity to enter the BIOS/UEFI setup menu is during the part when your PC is booting up.
Windows Fast Startup makes that booting process much shorter, meaning your window of opportunity to access your BIOS/UEFI menu is greatly reduced. It's not impossible to make it, but it is really annoying if you want to access that menu with any regularity. Of course, if you know you need to access it at a certain point, you could always just turn Fast Startup off real quick before turning it back on again later.
In general, it is a lot more convenient to access the UEFI/BIOS by Shift-clicking the Restart button from within Windows if you have Fast Startup enabled.
There Are Times When You Should Leave Fast Startup On
So far, it may sound like there is no reason to ever leave Fast Startup on, especially if it can cause you such a wide array of problems. But it's not like it's all bad. If you have this feature on and your PC doesn't seem to be having any trouble because of it, then by all means, leave Fast Startup on. It can even be beneficial for older computers that are still using mechanical hard drives. With those types of devices, Fast Startup really can make a big impact on boot times.
That said, if you're using any device with an SSD, Fast Startup really isn't doing that much for you, even if it isn't causing any problems. SSDs are already so fast, that Fast Startup will likely, at best, only give you a second or two of increased boot speed, and is it really worth the risk of the feature causing trouble when it's not that helpful for you anyway?
If you agree with that assessment, disabling Fast Startup is pretty easy. There are only a few steps you need to take to turn it off. It may vary whether you are using Windows 11 or Windows 10. Below is the quick process required to turn this feature off in Windows 11.
How to Disable Windows Fast Startup
This process should only take you a minute at most. First, open the Control Panel, and select "Hardware and Sound." Then under Power Options, you should select "Choose what the power buttons do." Finally, select "change settings that are currently unavailable." You will then be able to enable or disable the "Turn on Fast Startup" option.
Save your changes, and that's all there is to it. If you decide you want to enable Fast Startup again later, all you need to do is follow the same steps and make sure that Turn on Fast Startup is set to Enabled.
As you can see, even something that is on by default can actually cause trouble for your PC, and Fast Startup is not the only example of this. There are a lot of default programs, applications, or settings you can change to optimize your PC, even in small ways like increased battery life or slightly faster loading times. Granted, unless you're the type of person that likes to eke out every last decimal of performance from your machine, you can probably leave those things alone just as well.
