Shutdown-Restart

[WolfgangJ]

Hi,

in case of trouble it is sometimes helpful to restart Windows.
What is the difference between "shutdown" and "restart" in that respect ?

Wolfgang
_____________________________________

 

[Andrew Murray]

Hi,

in case of trouble it is sometimes helpful to restart Windows.
What is the difference between "shutdown" and "restart" in that respect ?
Wolfgang
_____________________________________

"Shut Down" - shuts down and exits Windows and prepares to power-off the PC.
It either shuts off the power automatically (assuming the BIOS supports such
a feature) or comes up with message "It is now safe to turn off your
computer", so you can turn it off by pressing the power button. Normally
though, modern PC's have the ability to auto-shut off as a modern PC would
be required to run XP anyway. The auto shutoff is handled through the
Advanced Power Management and/or options set in the BIOS.

"Restart" - Restarts the computer (reboot) - and reloads Windows. This is
often use where new software is installed and the system requires a restart
for the new program to run correctly.

Referring to your "in case of trouble" statement; yes, the system might
become unstable or freeze up at times, so a restart is the way to clear it.
If the system encounters a serious error, Windows can restart rather than
showing the Blue Screen of Death error. But you can turn these features
on/off (not sure how though). Generally Windows XP is very good at clearing
troublesome (crashing) programs, and can usually let the user continue using
the system without the need to restart (unlike Windows ME!).

I hope I have given an adequate answer, but not sure where you're heading
with this question.....?

 

[WolfgangJ]

not sure where you're heading with this question.....? <

I wanted to know if there is a difference in erasing previous data like
swap files, RAM etc. Do "shut down" as well as "restart" completely
begin from scratch without any difference ?

 

[Pop`]

Hi,

in case of trouble it is sometimes helpful to restart Windows.
What is the difference between "shutdown" and "restart" in that
respect ?
Wolfgang
_____________________________________

Well, a lot of people will say there's no difference and in most, not all
cases, that's true. However, in order to be certain that RAM get cleared
out completely, so that any leftovers are sure to be gone, it's often
necessary to shut down for twenty seconds or so so that power is removed
form RAM for that long. A restart doesn't allow that.

There's more to it, but that's the most basic difference I think.

Pop`

 

[Phil Weldon]

'WolfgangJ' wrote:
| I wanted to know if there is a difference in erasing previous data like
| swap files, RAM etc. Do "shut down" as well as "restart" completely
| begin from scratch without any difference ?
_____

'Shut Down' and 'Restart' both turn off most of the power supply, and all
data in RAM is lost. The swap file is not 'erased' no matter what method
you use to end and start a computer session. However the operating system
no longer has a record where each page is stored on the 'swap' or 'paging
file' and most of the contents of the swap file are scattered. The same is
true when you 'delete' a file; the data remains on the hard drive, but the
space taken up is marked available for use, and eventually overwritten.
That's why you have some chance of recovering an accidentally erased file if
you catch the error quickly enough.

You may be thinking about 'Hibernate'. 'Hibernate' causes Windows XP to
store the contents of memory and the machine state on 'hiberfile.sys' and
then turns the power off. When you restart the system, only the 'boot'
Controlled by the BIOS has to be done...Windows XP does not have to restart.
I comes up in just a few seconds with all the windows, programs, and data
you were working with when you executed 'Hibernate' rather than 'Shut Down.'

Phil Weldon

|> not sure where you're heading with this question.....? <
|
| I wanted to know if there is a difference in erasing previous data like
| swap files, RAM etc. Do "shut down" as well as "restart" completely
| begin from scratch without any difference ?
|

 

[Phil Weldon]

'Pop`' wrote, in part:
| However, in order to be certain that RAM get cleared
| out completely, so that any leftovers are sure to be gone, it's often
| necessary to shut down for twenty seconds or so so that power is removed
| form RAM for that long. A restart doesn't allow that.
_____

Not true.
The RAM in personal computers is volatile; any data dissipates in a fraction
of a second when power is removed.
Restart functions exactly the same as a Shutdown followed by a Start.
Forty years ago, this was not true, but there were no personal computers
then either.

Phil Weldon


| WolfgangJ wrote:
| > Hi,
| >
| > in case of trouble it is sometimes helpful to restart Windows.
| > What is the difference between "shutdown" and "restart" in that
| > respect ?
| > Wolfgang
| > _____________________________________
|
| Well, a lot of people will say there's no difference and in most, not all
| cases, that's true. However, in order to be certain that RAM get cleared
| out completely, so that any leftovers are sure to be gone, it's often
| necessary to shut down for twenty seconds or so so that power is removed
| form RAM for that long. A restart doesn't allow that.
|
| There's more to it, but that's the most basic difference I think.
|
| Pop`
|
|

 

[Sharon F]

Well, a lot of people will say there's no difference and in most, not all
cases, that's true. However, in order to be certain that RAM get cleared
out completely, so that any leftovers are sure to be gone, it's often
necessary to shut down for twenty seconds or so so that power is removed
form RAM for that long. A restart doesn't allow that.

There's more to it, but that's the most basic difference I think.

That's been my experience as well. Systems that perform a "soft restart"
can hold over some error conditions between restarts. I can clearly
remember doing this as a part of standard troubleshooting for Win95. Do not
see it recommended often nowadays, so suspect Phil is right about a change
in power management and/or hardware.

Old habits die hard though. If a machine is giving me persistent problems,
I still shutdown for a full minute before booting again.

 

[Pop`]

Phil,

With all due respect Phil, it is true and often "fixes" a stubborn problem
when Restart is used to no avail. Nearly everyone has experienced it at one
time or another though they may not recognize it. As I said earlier, there
are other things at work; some are listed below:

Restart:
--POST isn't run completely; but it is after a shut down.
--Power supply is not shut down; but it is actually powered down after a
shut down
--is known as a "soft" or "warm" boot. Shutdown is a "cold" boot.
--does not "reset" a hardware hangup since power is never completely
removed. A Cold boot however, or Power-off, will release the hangup most
times. Usually ten seconds "off" is plenty of time, but most people
recommend longer periods just to cover the extreme cases where maybe 11
seconds are needed. Usually, only a second or less are required, depending
on some other things, but up to ten is the generally recognized technical
solution for time "off".
-- does not guarantee the "reset" line will work on all chips if they are
hung (tri-stated, capacitively locked, whatever; lots of possibilities.).

HTH
Pop`

 

[Pop`]

That's been my experience as well. Systems that perform a "soft
restart" can hold over some error conditions between restarts. I can
clearly remember doing this as a part of standard troubleshooting for
Win95. Do not see it recommended often nowadays, so suspect Phil is
right about a change in power management and/or hardware.

Old habits die hard though. If a machine is giving me persistent
problems, I still shutdown for a full minute before booting again.

I agree, it's much less necessary these days; the reset lines are better
designed and in general there are a lot of design improvements. I still
recommend it often and a few times or so a year I manage to have to use it.
My most recent experience with it was a program install that either
corrupted on disk or the install was trash; not sure which. The logs
indicated multiple writes to the same area of RAM and page file and no
REstart was going to fix it, or so I decided after three tries, anyway. It
just wouldn't/couldn't get to the login screen. Dreading having to restore
from an image I powered down. Counted off about 30 seconds, and powered
back up (a cold boot). Viola: Everything worked and after zeroing out the
logs, they were clean, too. I was back in business. Nothing lost except
one application I decided to can and got my money back on. In some ways I'm
a purist; mess up my machine and you don't get to live on it<G>. I passed
it on to a freind who had XP Home and guess what? Same thing there (I have
XP Pro). And again, a cold boot solved it. I verified it was OK a few days
later by checking her log files; clean since the date stamp of the cold
boot.

But you're right, it's not like the days of 95 and/or 98. But even 98 got
to be pretty good near the end there when all the fixes were out and they
were ready to obsolete it<g>! I have it running on another machine and it
gives few problems nowadays. I keep it for some DOS progs I use
periodically.

Pop`

 

[Phil Weldon]

'Pop`' wrote:
| With all due respect Phil, it is true and often "fixes" a stubborn problem
| when Restart is used to no avail. Nearly everyone has experienced it at
| one
| time or another though they may not recognize it. As I said earlier, there
| are other things at work; some are listed below:
|
| Restart:
| --POST isn't run completely; but it is after a shut down.
| --Power supply is not shut down; but it is actually powered down after a
| shut down
| --is known as a "soft" or "warm" boot. Shutdown is a "cold" boot.
| --does not "reset" a hardware hangup since power is never completely
| removed. A Cold boot however, or Power-off, will release the hangup most
| times. Usually ten seconds "off" is plenty of time, but most people
| recommend longer periods just to cover the extreme cases where maybe 11
| seconds are needed. Usually, only a second or less are required,
| depending
| on some other things, but up to ten is the generally recognized technical
| solution for time "off".
| -- does not guarantee the "reset" line will work on all chips if they are
| hung (tri-stated, capacitively locked, whatever; lots of possibilities.).
_____

Your explanation of 'Restart', "POST', memory, and machine state is just
wrong.

'Restart' does indeed reboot, completely.
The machine state is reset.
The clocks stop.
Memory refresh stops (if a bit is not refreshed within a window of ~ 64
milliseconds it is no longer valid).
Memory is reset.
AND no matter what is in memory, if the operating system or BIOS does not
know about it, it isn't there.
Gone are the days when memory had to be set to all zeros.

There may be any number of reasons for you think you observe, but certainly
not the reasons you state.

Phil Weldon

| Phil,
|
| With all due respect Phil, it is true and often "fixes" a stubborn problem
| when Restart is used to no avail. Nearly everyone has experienced it at
one
| time or another though they may not recognize it. As I said earlier, there
| are other things at work; some are listed below:
|
| Restart:
| --POST isn't run completely; but it is after a shut down.
| --Power supply is not shut down; but it is actually powered down after a
| shut down
| --is known as a "soft" or "warm" boot. Shutdown is a "cold" boot.
| --does not "reset" a hardware hangup since power is never completely
| removed. A Cold boot however, or Power-off, will release the hangup most
| times. Usually ten seconds "off" is plenty of time, but most people
| recommend longer periods just to cover the extreme cases where maybe 11
| seconds are needed. Usually, only a second or less are required,
depending
| on some other things, but up to ten is the generally recognized technical
| solution for time "off".
| -- does not guarantee the "reset" line will work on all chips if they are
| hung (tri-stated, capacitively locked, whatever; lots of possibilities.).
|
| HTH
| Pop`
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Phil Weldon wrote:
| > 'Pop`' wrote, in part:
| >> However, in order to be certain that RAM get cleared
| >> out completely, so that any leftovers are sure to be gone, it's often
| >> necessary to shut down for twenty seconds or so so that power is
| >> removed form RAM for that long. A restart doesn't allow that.
| > _____
| >
| > Not true.
| > The RAM in personal computers is volatile; any data dissipates in a
| > fraction of a second when power is removed.
| > Restart functions exactly the same as a Shutdown followed by a Start.
| > Forty years ago, this was not true, but there were no personal
| > computers then either.
| >
| > Phil Weldon
| >
| >
| > | >> WolfgangJ wrote:
| >>> Hi,
| >>>
| >>> in case of trouble it is sometimes helpful to restart Windows.
| >>> What is the difference between "shutdown" and "restart" in that
| >>> respect ?
| >>> Wolfgang
| >>> _____________________________________
| >>
| >> Well, a lot of people will say there's no difference and in most,
| >> not all cases, that's true. However, in order to be certain that
| >> RAM get cleared out completely, so that any leftovers are sure to be
| >> gone, it's often necessary to shut down for twenty seconds or so so
| >> that power is removed form RAM for that long. A restart doesn't
| >> allow that.
| >>
| >> There's more to it, but that's the most basic difference I think.
| >>
| >> Pop`
|
|
|
|

 

[Pop`]

Your explanation of 'Restart', "POST', memory, and machine state is
just wrong.

'Restart' does indeed reboot, completely.
The machine state is reset.
The clocks stop.
Memory refresh stops (if a bit is not refreshed within a window of ~
64 milliseconds it is no longer valid).
Memory is reset.
AND no matter what is in memory, if the operating system or BIOS does
not know about it, it isn't there.
Gone are the days when memory had to be set to all zeros.

There may be any number of reasons for you think you observe, but
certainly not the reasons you state.

Phil Weldon

Trying to rephrase and covering only part of the process does nothing to
help your case. Sorry, I'm done; closed minds don't seem to care to see the
forests.

 

[Phil Weldon]

'Pop`' wrote:
| Trying to rephrase and covering only part of the process does nothing to
| help your case. Sorry, I'm done; closed minds don't seem to care to see
the
| forests.
_____

With which of these details I cited do you disagree?
| > 'Restart' does indeed reboot, completely.
| > The machine state is reset.
| > The clocks stop.
| > Memory refresh stops (if a bit is not refreshed within a window of ~
| > 64 milliseconds it is no longer valid).
| > Memory is reset.
| > AND no matter what is in memory, if the operating system or BIOS does
| > not know about it, it isn't there.

I can supply some reference cites if you are interested.

Phil Weldon



| Phil Weldon wrote:
| > 'Pop`' wrote:
| >> With all due respect Phil, it is true and often "fixes" a stubborn
| >> problem when Restart is used to no avail. Nearly everyone has
| >> experienced it at one
| >> time or another though they may not recognize it. As I said earlier,
| >> there are other things at work; some are listed below:
| >>
| >> Restart:
| >> --POST isn't run completely; but it is after a shut down.
| >> --Power supply is not shut down; but it is actually powered down
| >> after a shut down
| >> --is known as a "soft" or "warm" boot. Shutdown is a "cold" boot.
| >> --does not "reset" a hardware hangup since power is never completely
| >> removed. A Cold boot however, or Power-off, will release the hangup
| >> most times. Usually ten seconds "off" is plenty of time, but most
| >> people recommend longer periods just to cover the extreme cases
| >> where maybe 11 seconds are needed. Usually, only a second or less
| >> are required, depending
| >> on some other things, but up to ten is the generally recognized
| >> technical solution for time "off".
| >> -- does not guarantee the "reset" line will work on all chips if
| >> they are hung (tri-stated, capacitively locked, whatever; lots of
| >> possibilities.). _____
| >
| > Your explanation of 'Restart', "POST', memory, and machine state is
| > just wrong.
| >
| > 'Restart' does indeed reboot, completely.
| > The machine state is reset.
| > The clocks stop.
| > Memory refresh stops (if a bit is not refreshed within a window of ~
| > 64 milliseconds it is no longer valid).
| > Memory is reset.
| > AND no matter what is in memory, if the operating system or BIOS does
| > not know about it, it isn't there.
| > Gone are the days when memory had to be set to all zeros.
| >
| > There may be any number of reasons for you think you observe, but
| > certainly not the reasons you state.
| >
| > Phil Weldon

|
| Trying to rephrase and covering only part of the process does nothing to
| help your case. Sorry, I'm done; closed minds don't seem to care to see
the
| forests.
|
|
|