What is Hibernation File Cleaner in Vista?

[Mackenrick]

I was going to do use Disk Cleanup to clear some of the clutter from my
computer but was not sure what all to put a check mark on. There was one
file in particular "Hibernation File Cleaner" that had 3.24GB of stuff in it.
What is that folder, why is it storing so much stuff in it, and is it safe
to "Clean" it? Thanks for the help.

 

[Jon]

I was going to do use Disk Cleanup to clear some of the clutter from my
computer but was not sure what all to put a check mark on. There was one
file in particular "Hibernation File Cleaner" that had 3.24GB of stuff in
it.
What is that folder, why is it storing so much stuff in it, and is it safe
to "Clean" it? Thanks for the help.

The 'hibernation file' is used if you ever 'hibernate' the machine, as
opposed to turning off the machine via 'Shut Down', and should be equal in
size to the amount of Ram in your machine. If you don't use that particular
feature then you can clean it up.

 

[Richard Urban]

Vista uses what is called hybrid sleep. It is a combination of sleep and
hibernation.

When you place the computer into sleep mode the hiberfil.sys file is also
written to. If the power goes off while you are in sleep mode (without the
hiberfil.sys active) you loose everything. If you were in the middle of a
term paper it will be gone.

With the hiberfil.sys active, if you lose power, the computer will start up
as if you had placed the computer into hibernation (instead of sleep). Your
desktop and work will be the same as when you put the computer to sleep.

It's a neat combination really and I suggest you leave well enough alone.

 

[Mike950]

Thank you for the reply Jon. Before posting this I had tried to search for
some answers but apparently didn't use the correct words because I didn't
find what I was looking for. I tried again using different words and found
at least some information that was helpful. Your description was the most
useful.

From the other information I found, it woud appear that on a desktop PC, it
is ok to turn off the Hibernation and use the "Sleep" mode. If I understood
the information correctly, this will prevent the huge 3+ GB Hibernation File
Cleaner file.



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[Michael Walraven]

If you disable hibernation, set machine to 'sleep' and you have a power
failure while sleeping, you will have the equivalent of a system crash.

 

[Jon]

From the other information I found, it woud appear that on a desktop PC,
it
is ok to turn off the Hibernation and use the "Sleep" mode. If I
understood
the information correctly, this will prevent the huge 3+ GB Hibernation
File
Cleaner file.

Should do. You can also ensure that you're using 'Sleep' (no writing to
disc), rather than 'hybrid sleep' via

Control Panel > Power Options > Change plan settings > Change advanced power
settings
and then in the 'Sleep' section, ensuring 'Allow hybrid sleep' is set to
'Off'

That way there should be no writing of ram to disc on entering sleep, and so
no need for the file.