Restarting Windows Without Restarting Your PC (Vista or XP)

August 13th, 2007 — Craig

Restarting Windows VistaA modern PC with Vista Home Edition takes about one and a half minutes to boot. An older machine with XP is about the same. That’s 30 seconds for the PC itself (the BIOS) to boot up, plus a minute for the Windows operating system to boot. Sometimes, you need to reboot Windows (e.g. when installing new software), but there is no need to restart BIOS, too. However, the default is to reboot both. (That’s called doing a “cold boot,” rather than a “warm boot.”) There’s a trick that works on both XP and Vista to get it to do a warm boot instead, thus saving you 30 seconds per cycle.

Update: Well, this tip is in error. It used to work in Windows 95/98, but it doesn’t work anymore. I thought it did, but I was mistaken. So the CodeJacked score on Windows tips currently stands at 103 valid tips and 1 invalid one. Sorry about that, folks. For the full story on what happened, see Accidental Hoax Revealed; CodeJacked Tipster Chagrined.

Update #2: Amazingly, people keep posting comments and pingbacks to this tip even though it’s been retracted. Commenting on this post is now closed, but feel free to comment on the follow-up post.


The trick is to hold down the SHIFT key when invoking the restart.Windows Vista: Select Start, then hover over the right arrow that is to the right of the padlock icon until the pop-up menu appears that contains “restart” as one of it’s choices. Hold down the SHIFT key while clicking on the “restart” choice.

Windows XP: Select Start. Select “Shut Down…”. Change the drop-down combo box under “What do you want the computer to do?” to “Restart”. Hold down the SHIFT key while clicking on the “OK” button.
Restarting Windows XP

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Read more: Productivity, Windows

Trackbacks & Pings

  1. Restart Windows without restarting your BIOS at SoftSaurus on 16 Aug 2007 at 4:03 pm

    […] As a heads-up, if you’ve got a complex hardware setup you could possibly run into some trouble with a warm boot. If any BIOS experts out there can shed some light on when you would (and would not) want to use a warm boot, let’s hear it in the comments. Restarting Windows Without Restarting Your PC (Vista or XP) [CodeJacked.com] […]

  2. Restart Windows without restarting your BIOS at SoftSaurus on 16 Aug 2007 at 4:03 pm

    […] As a heads-up, if you’ve got a complex hardware setup you could possibly run into some trouble with a warm boot. If any BIOS experts out there can shed some light on when you would (and would not) want to use a warm boot, let’s hear it in the comments. Restarting Windows Without Restarting Your PC (Vista or XP) [CodeJacked.com] « Restart Windows without restarting your BIOS […]

  3. Windows Tip: Restart Windows without restarting your BIOS · TechBlogger on 16 Aug 2007 at 4:32 pm

    […] As a heads-up, if you’ve got a complex hardware setup you could possibly run into some trouble with a warm boot. If any BIOS experts out there can shed some light on when you would (and would not) want to use a warm boot, let’s hear it in the comments. Restarting Windows Without Restarting Your PC (Vista or XP) [CodeJacked.com] […]

  4. Windows Tip: Restart Windows without restarting your BIOS « Unleash your inner geek on 16 Aug 2007 at 6:54 pm

    […] As a heads-up, if you’ve got a complex hardware setup you could possibly run into some trouble with a warm boot. If any BIOS experts out there can shed some light on when you would (and would not) want to use a warm boot, let’s hear it in the comments. Restarting Windows Without Restarting Your PC (Vista or XP) [CodeJacked.com]” […]

  5. Restarting Windows Without Restarting Your PC (Vista or XP) « Sanity, Insanity, and Moi on 17 Aug 2007 at 2:42 am

    […] The article -Restarting Windows Without Restarting Your PC (Vista or XP), says that 30 sec of the time is for the BIOS to boot up, but why do you need that in the first place to reboot. So restart the PC with out restarting the BIOS – just hold down the Shift key while invoking Restart<Codejacked – Restarting Windows Without Restarting Your PC (Vista or XP) […]

  6. Restarting Windows Without Restarting Your PC (Vista or XP) – Tech Tips + Tricks on 17 Aug 2007 at 3:42 am

    […] CodeJacked have a nice tip for Windows users to re-start Windows without re-starting their Vista or XP powered PCs. […]

  7. Faster way to restart your PC | TechBharat on 17 Aug 2007 at 4:06 am

    […] Via […]

  8. Restart XP (or Vista) without restarting your BIOS! « IT Techno Babble v.2 on 17 Aug 2007 at 4:11 am

    […] Techno Babble v.2 Tech Talk for Techies « Interested in a new PDA? Restart XP (or Vista) without restarting your BIOS! August 17th, 2007 This has been posted everywhere… but it’s too damn cool to pass up.Thanks <codejacked>! […]

  9. Restarting Windows Without Restarting Your PC (Vista or XP) on 17 Aug 2007 at 4:13 am

    […] via Codejacked […]

  10. Restarting Windows Without Restarting Your PC (Vista or XP) on El Blog Geek on 17 Aug 2007 at 4:55 am

    […] Sometimes, you need to reboot Windows (e.g. when installing new software), but there is no need to restart BIOS, too. However, the default is to reboot both. (That’s called doing a “cold boot,” rather than a “warm boot.”) There’s a trick that works on both XP and Vista to get it to do a warm boot instead, thus saving you 30 seconds per cycle.read more | digg story Links: Trackback link Permalink RSS for comments Del.icio.us Digg Technorati […]

  11. Restarting Windows Without Restarting Your PC (Vista or XP) « //burnz.blog on 20 Aug 2007 at 4:02 am

    […] [ Source ] […]

  12. Truco: Reiniciar Windows Sin Reiniciar la Computadora on 20 Aug 2007 at 1:29 pm

    […] Para no perder este tiempo puedes utilizar este pequeño truco que encontré en codejacked, que nos enseña como reiniciar el sistema operativo Windows (ya sea XP o Vista) sin reiniciar la computadora. […]

  13. Episode 24 Links » Friends Hating Friends on 20 Aug 2007 at 3:01 pm

    […] 50 Really Good Indie Games Video and photos of rocketbelt conference MythTV The Secret Connections between “Fight Club” and “Calvin and Hobbes” REVEALED! Battle at Kruger Calvin & Hobbes Archives A Poison Pen From the RIAA The Wonderful How Are We Paying Off Our Subprime Mortgages? Restarting Windows Without Restarting Your PC (Vista or XP) Fasselon Related posts:No related posts […]

  14. links for 2007-08-21 at James A. Arconati on 20 Aug 2007 at 11:22 pm

    […] » Restarting Windows Without Restarting Your PC (Vista or XP) Sometimes, you need to reboot Windows (e.g. when installing new software), but there is no need to restart BIOS, too. However, the default is to reboot both. (That’s called doing a “cold boot,” rather than a “warm boot.”) There’s a trick that (tags: microsoft microsoft/windows tips reference) […]

  15. Windows Tip: Restart Windows without restarting your BIOS at H4CKER.cc on 21 Aug 2007 at 5:09 am

    […] Restarting Windows Without Restarting Your PC (Vista or XP) [CodeJacked.com] […]

  16. TweakMODE.COM » Restarting Windows Without Restarting Your PC (Vista or XP) on 21 Aug 2007 at 6:34 am

    […] Sometimes, you need to reboot Windows (e.g. when installing new software), but there is no need to restart BIOS, too. However, the default is to reboot both. (That ’s called doing a “cold boot,” rather than a “warm boot.”) There’s a trick that works on both XP and Vista to get it to do a warm boot instead, thus saving you 30 seconds per cycle.read more | digg story Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. […]

  17. Restarting Windows Without Restarting Your PC (Vista or XP) « Nicko think on software on 21 Aug 2007 at 10:29 pm

    […] read more | digg story […]

  18. geekMethod.com – Weekly tech, internet, computer and social geek podcast » Blog Archive » Podcast 44 – Where’s YOUR Big Daddy? on 22 Aug 2007 at 1:33 pm

    […] How to restart Windows without restarting the whole machine […]

  19. The Usual Dosage » Blog Archive » Restarting Windows Without Restarting Your PC (Vista or XP) on 23 Aug 2007 at 1:07 pm

    […] more | digg story     Read More    Post aComment […]

  20. And He Blogs » links for 2007-08-24 on 24 Aug 2007 at 11:32 am

    […] » Restarting Windows Without Restarting Your PC (Vista or XP) (tags: windows tips restart xp vista boot) […]

Comments

  1. jamba wrote:

    Wow really? It is pretty rare for someone to teach me something entirely new about XP, but that really is new to me.

    What exactly does it do? It looks to me like it does more than just restart explorer.exe, it seems more like ctrl-shift-backspace in Linux.

    Anyone know exactly what it does?

    Posted 14 Aug 2007 at 7:27 am

  2. Mark wrote:

    I tried this on my 2nd computer and it would simply go back to the desktop. There was no error message in the logs, just no result. I finally got it to go via the shutdown command available from ctrl+alt+delete. I don’t know whether that’s different, or whether it was the one of multiple attempts that finally worked.

    That computer uses a wireless keyboard and mouse hooked to a KVM switch, and when it restarted it didn’t recognize either one. My guess is that the KVM caused the problem.

    It’ll be a handy tip when working on others’ computers to lessen the amount of time spent waiting for multiple reboots, though. Thanks!

    Posted 15 Aug 2007 at 6:21 am

  3. Mark wrote:

    Another quirk, this time on my Thinkpad laptop: First, I had the same experience of having nothing happen unless I used the shutdown button from ctrl+alt+delete. Then when it started to reboot it couldn’t find the hard drive, and I had to restart. So it looks like some manufacturers set things up in a way that the BIOS is required.

    Posted 16 Aug 2007 at 7:52 am

  4. gregf wrote:

    You could do this back in Windows 95 not exactly a new feature.

    Posted 16 Aug 2007 at 3:48 pm

  5. miffy wrote:

    this does not work for me at all, whether using ctrl+atl+del or start->shutdown…..

    Posted 16 Aug 2007 at 4:31 pm

  6. Blake Brannon wrote:

    Didn’t help at all for me. I have the grub boot loader installed so I wonder if that forces the bios to restart?

    Posted 16 Aug 2007 at 6:08 pm

  7. salim wrote:

    it doesn’t work for me at all

    Posted 16 Aug 2007 at 8:45 pm

  8. Browny wrote:

    Nice trick

    Posted 16 Aug 2007 at 9:03 pm

  9. johnxon wrote:

    Not working

    Posted 16 Aug 2007 at 11:22 pm

  10. Matt wrote:

    Doesn’t work. Still does a regular reboot.

    Posted 17 Aug 2007 at 1:20 am

  11. Marc wrote:

    There’s a reason we haven’t heard of this trick before. Mostly because it doesn’t work. It works in Windows 98 since it just runs over DOS.

    Posted 17 Aug 2007 at 2:14 am

  12. kL wrote:

    Haha, so that’s *16* ways to shut the damn thing :)

    http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/11/21.html

    Posted 17 Aug 2007 at 2:54 am

  13. Lorin wrote:

    Doesn’t work here either. But I don’t have the drop-down box. start>turn off computer just gives thee buttons – “standby” “turn-off” “restart” There is no OK button. How do you switch over to the alternate display?

    Posted 17 Aug 2007 at 2:59 am

  14. Mike wrote:

    Craig,
    Do you have to hold the Shift key after you click ok? Maybe some people are clicking ok and letting go of the Shift key to early?

    Posted 17 Aug 2007 at 3:24 am

  15. FTL wrote:

    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/226939

    This existed in 9x but was removed in 2000, and hasn’t been there since. It doesn’t matter which shutdown dialog you use.

    Posted 17 Aug 2007 at 4:03 am

  16. Diabolic Preacher wrote:

    @Lorin: you need to change to the Classic Logon style to get the Windows 2000/ME style shutdown box that is shown.
    or maybe you can hold shift and click the restart icon.

    it is an old feature, but didn’t know that it still worked on XP/Vista

    Posted 17 Aug 2007 at 4:07 am

  17. 10668844 wrote:

    Thanks, works.

    Posted 17 Aug 2007 at 6:30 am

  18. Mike wrote:

    This is an old feature from 98.. does not work these days.. this guy does not have a clue what he is talking about

    Posted 19 Aug 2007 at 11:13 pm

  19. binary wrote:

    I smell a prank…

    Imagine how many people on Digg restarted their computers just to see if this worked.

    XD

    Posted 20 Aug 2007 at 6:14 am

  20. Wasatch Software wrote:

    Very nice tip! It will only save me a few minutes a week, but tons of annoyance with Windows restarts.

    Posted 20 Aug 2007 at 8:03 pm

  21. Jeff Atwood wrote:

    This totally does not work in any NT based OS, as noted above.

    Great “tip”.. if you’re running Windows 9x.

    Posted 21 Aug 2007 at 9:37 am

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