How to Restart Windows Without Restarting Your PC

January 27th, 2008
How to Restart Windows Without Restarting Your PC

To me restarting my PC is one of the most annoying thing that I come across daily. Besides Vista takes up around one to two minutes to boot up sometimes. Even Windows XP slowly crawls at around a minute to load. Most of the time this happens due to myself frequently installing things that i shouldn’t and end up trashing the PC which results in a restart. Ofcourse there is a trick involving tricking the PC do a “warm reboot,” rather than a “cold boot.” The trick involves holding down the SHIFT key when invoking the restart.

Windows Vista: Select Start, then click on the padlock button icon and from there, hold down the SHIFT key while clicking on the “Restart” choice.

Windows XP: Its pretty much the same. Select Start. Select “Shut Down…” Hold down the SHIFT key while clicking on the “Restart” button.

pctipsbox

Pranjal




  1. January 28th, 2008 at 18:56 | #1

    Thanks for the tip. I need to restart my PC every hour when it’s performance goes down… This tip will certainly save my time and frustration

  2. January 29th, 2008 at 15:07 | #2

    Very useful tip. I know that restarting windows by restarting my PC is not good for my hardisk. This tip will help me to fix the windows but on the other hand keep the life time of my PC. Thank’s a lot for the tip!

  3. January 29th, 2008 at 15:16 | #3

    My Pc is now less stressed out cos i don’t put my figures on the reset button any more.

  4. Julian
    January 29th, 2008 at 20:43 | #4

    Great tip indeed, my PC get in a fight every time over the reset button.. good to know.
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  5. January 29th, 2008 at 21:51 | #5

    that was a great tip will help many for sure.

  6. January 30th, 2008 at 05:07 | #6

    What a load. It doesn’t work. At least, it didn’t for me on Vista. Reminds me of the old days on IRC when someone would say Alt + F4 would result in fame and fortune.

  7. January 30th, 2008 at 08:29 | #7

    I can’t believe you posted this without actually trying it yourself :|

    This method USED to work for Windows 95 ! It does NOT work in XP/Vista.

  8. TheDude
    February 2nd, 2008 at 08:34 | #8

    You idiot! This doesn’t even work. Thanks for wasting everyone’s time.

    Stupid hacker wannabe.

  9. February 4th, 2008 at 20:35 | #9

    Thanks for the tip. I love tips that save time and increase performance.

  10. February 5th, 2008 at 02:17 | #10

    @Bhumika Thank you very much.

  11. Drake
    February 5th, 2008 at 21:51 | #11

    i tried that and i have xp and it didnt do a thing

  12. February 6th, 2008 at 16:01 | #12

    Woah! never thought of that! thanks for the tip!

  13. February 9th, 2008 at 05:26 | #13

    Awesome tip!! This is amazing!!

  14. John
    February 9th, 2008 at 09:06 | #14

    On Vista Ultimate, doing Start, then Padlock icon, does not show “Restart.” It is for switching users. You can just log in again, but it doesn’t restart Vista.

    There is a “Restart” if you select the arrow next to the Padlock icon. Holding down the Shift key while (or after) pressing Restart does nothing; it completely restarts after a complete shutdown.

  15. Drakemallard
    February 9th, 2008 at 20:07 | #15

    This SHIFT thing works since Windows 95.

    The thing is, how much time do you save?

    I mean, I’ve tried it in several differente machines and the fact is that the difference is about 3 or for 4 seconds.

    Don’t get me wrong. I love learning new tricks and stuff, but sometimes I wonder why do we even care about this kind of things.

    Reboot your PC the traditional way, and while it’s booting go to drink some water, or stand up and take a few steps and stretch your muscles.

    It will no be a waste of time if you’re doing something good for yourself.

    Regards
    DM

  16. John
    February 9th, 2008 at 20:25 | #16

    Drakemallard wrote: “This SHIFT thing works since Windows 95.”

    Is this what this thread is talking about? She SHIFT thing since Windows 95 is when you hold SHIFT while rebooting it doesn’t load your Startup folder. The instructions here don’t mention holding down SHIFT while rebooting.

    As to reboot time, that has dramatically improved after Win/98. But it is still a pain. However, the pain isn’t with Windows; it is with the applications we chose to have loaded upon startup.

  17. February 9th, 2008 at 23:56 | #17

    @john , well said and @ Drakemallard well i understand your opinion too. But we fanboys will keep on doing this things. 3,4 secs baby that’s too much time for us. ;)

  18. Drakemallard
    February 10th, 2008 at 01:48 | #18

    @John

    No, I didn´t mean that feature (holding SHIFT down while reboot to skip startup folder).

    I was talking about the same feature the article is about. When you are at the Shutdown dialog, if you select reboot while pressing the SHIFT key, it restart Windwos instead of doing a complete reboot.

    @Pranjal
    I know 3,4 secs is a lot for all of us… That´s why I´m worried ;)

  19. February 23rd, 2008 at 06:48 | #19

    Definitely a great time saver, thanks for posting.

    DOTTED – http://www.newsdots.com/software/how-to-restart-windows-without-restarting-your-pc/

  20. February 24th, 2008 at 14:54 | #20

    @Geoserv thanks dude

  21. April 29th, 2008 at 14:19 | #21

    Friend this tip is great only for older versions of Windows but not for XP or Vista. I suppose this post was published by mistake.

    Anyways, at least I found another good site through this post only. Now I am digging more to find more interesting stuff.

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