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How To: Enable Or Disable Hibernate Option In Windows 7

Posted January 19, 2009 – 6:21 pm in: Windows 7, Windows 7 Guides
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In Windows XP enabling Hibernate option was a very easy task, but we have to follow a different approach to do the same job in Vista and Windows 7.

If you are not aware of Hibernate feature, Hibernation is a power-saving state designed primarily for laptops. While sleep puts your work and settings in memory and draws a small amount of power, hibernation puts your open documents and programs on your hard disk and then turns off your computer. Of all the power-saving states in Windows, hibernation uses the least amount of power. On a laptop, use hibernation when you know that you won’t use your laptop for an extended period and won’t have an opportunity to charge the battery during that time.

Hibernate option in windows 7

So if you are really going to use this feature then you need to enable it by doing a simple procedure as mentioned below:

1. Open Command Prompt with Administrator rights. To open Command Prompt, type CMD in Start menu and then hit Ctrl + Shift + Enter to open the Command Prompt with Admin rights.

2. Next, type the below command and hit enter:

powercfg /hibernate on

Hibernate command

3. Type exit and hit enter to close the Command Prompt.

4. If you can’t see the Hibernate option in Start menu then do the following tasks:

A. Type Power Options in Start menu and hit enter.

B. In the left pane, open the link labeled “Change when the computer sleeps” and then open the link “Change advanced power settings”.

Hybrid sleep

C. Under the Advanced Sleep options, expand the Sleep tree and turn off Hybrid Sleep.

D. Now go back to Start menu to see the new Hibernate entry.

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129 Comments

  1. skylinerr34j
    Posted February 26, 2009 at 9:12 am | Permalink

    it restarts after hitting hibernate and resumes again after reboot

  2. Ram
    Posted March 1, 2009 at 11:56 pm | Permalink

    Thanks for the info. The second part was more useful. :)

  3. tweakwindows
    Posted March 5, 2009 at 7:54 am | Permalink

    Remove hibernate file by using in-built disk cleanup tool. And, then try again.

  4. mitch
    Posted April 9, 2009 at 8:00 am | Permalink

    I did this and hibernate appeared in the start menu. I clicked it and my system did hibernate – for a few minutes. Then it started again.

  5. tweakwindows
    Posted April 10, 2009 at 12:11 pm | Permalink

    Strange, it should work fine.

  6. brian
    Posted May 10, 2009 at 5:19 pm | Permalink

    Thank you, works great!

  7. alisina
    Posted June 28, 2009 at 1:12 pm | Permalink

    it’s good help thanck you so much.

  8. tk malah
    Posted July 1, 2009 at 1:05 am | Permalink

    Great job man for Win 7 the second option worked great i thought the old school way with vista -h on CMD would work but it didnt guess Win 7 wants u too be more user friendly CLICK CLICK no more typing what u want ! :)
    THANKS thou!

  9. Kashif Awan
    Posted July 5, 2009 at 9:50 pm | Permalink

    Very very thanks for this

    i was looking for this for some days ago

  10. Connor
    Posted July 23, 2009 at 1:24 am | Permalink

    Hibernate still does not appear in the start menu, even after typing “powercfg /hibernate on” into the command prompt and disabling hybrid sleep.

  11. airtonix
    Posted August 28, 2009 at 10:22 pm | Permalink

    computer doesn’t stay in hibernation.

    turns on again after a few seconds.

  12. Yordan Yordanov
    Posted August 29, 2009 at 3:18 pm | Permalink

    It works great, thanks!

  13. George
    Posted October 16, 2009 at 12:24 am | Permalink

    Great! I was trying to do this for some time now.

  14. hien
    Posted October 18, 2009 at 7:44 am | Permalink

    Thanks a lot, it works fine!

  15. mike d
    Posted October 24, 2009 at 9:48 pm | Permalink

    I have the RC candidate installed on a desktop and just upgraded a dell xps 1330 from vista to 7. I can’t get either to ever wake up from hibernation. Both worked great with VISTA hibernation. Other than that 7 is nice, certainly not great.

  16. Chris
    Posted November 7, 2009 at 7:27 am | Permalink

    Thanks for this. Even Windows 7 ‘Help and Support’ doesn’t cover this, which I was surprised by.

  17. Davion
    Posted November 10, 2009 at 8:42 am | Permalink

    Hi there,

    I tried to execute the powercfg command. However even after running the command as an Administrator, it gives me a message saying that I do not have the permission to make changes to the power configuration. I am having a 7000 build.
    Please advise.
    Regards,
    Davion.

  18. Commando07
    Posted November 12, 2009 at 9:04 pm | Permalink

    Thanks that was very helpful :)

  19. Johnson Yip
    Posted December 11, 2009 at 9:56 am | Permalink

    Thanks for the help. It is strange that 7 makes Hibernate option off on the start menu by default, and requires the user to turn off Hybird sleep, so hibernate is on.

  20. Lollo
    Posted December 11, 2009 at 3:22 pm | Permalink

    I really didn’t know that I have to disable hybrid sleep before use hibernation. Thanks a lot!

  21. Gabi Eskinazi
    Posted December 14, 2009 at 7:46 am | Permalink

    Man! CONGRATULATIONS!! Even B. Gates can’t explain it better. Suffering for months and a genius explanation. THANK YOU!

  22. pooya
    Posted December 24, 2009 at 11:32 pm | Permalink

    great,love you so much.i could’t find it anywhere else.

  23. Joel LaRocco
    Posted December 26, 2009 at 2:49 am | Permalink

    I am trying to set my Win 7 to hibernate, so if the mouse is moved it will not come out of hibernation.

    My Win Vista was pretty simple to set up but I am having trouble finding the solution.

    Thanks

  24. Rajesh
    Posted January 1, 2010 at 11:34 am | Permalink

    Thank you, that helped me.

  25. Photon
    Posted January 4, 2010 at 9:42 pm | Permalink

    Thank you so much for this guide. It helped me get it back! I needed it because I was going to move my computer upstairs, and I still had work on it to get done. I just can’t afford a shutdown, nor sleep is possible, for I’m pulling the plug (duh).

    Thanks again :D

  26. Duimengo
    Posted January 6, 2010 at 12:06 pm | Permalink

    Thanks for the guide, the seccond part was excellent… However appearently in my cmd, it’s called “powercfg -h on” instead of “powercfg /hibernate on”. Just a little notice. Thanks anyway

  27. Anon
    Posted February 8, 2010 at 7:04 pm | Permalink

    Thank you, very helpful post, I’ll be reading more of your stuff in future…!

  28. Derek C Johnstone
    Posted February 9, 2010 at 3:16 am | Permalink

    Great.
    I’ve been looking for this for ages
    Thanks

  29. vivekanand3435
    Posted February 11, 2010 at 12:02 am | Permalink

    very simple and perfect!!!! thanks a lot.

  30. Curtis
    Posted February 11, 2010 at 5:35 am | Permalink

    Thank you so much for this! After Windows 7 updated, I lost my hibernate feature. I’m so glad it’s back!

  31. adriana
    Posted March 10, 2010 at 2:42 am | Permalink

    great explanation!! THANKS! <3

  32. Will
    Posted March 13, 2010 at 11:39 pm | Permalink

    Thank yo so much….. stupid microsoft, why make it so hard.

  33. David Braganza
    Posted March 21, 2010 at 11:17 pm | Permalink

    My God, maybe Microsoft should contract you out for their technical support. They could not even tell me how to enable hibernation in windows 7 64. They led me throught the cmd entry, but your site took me further to correct the issue. Thank you sooo much!

  34. chiru
    Posted March 22, 2010 at 12:15 am | Permalink

    Yes the much needed “Hibernate” feature works superb now on my pc, and very nice explanations. For eight months I have been using W 7 RC candidate, w/o hibernate feature. The standby feature makes the pc start even with slightest mouse movement, or accidental keybrd press. Thanks for the post.

  35. AG
    Posted March 24, 2010 at 2:33 pm | Permalink

    Ah… great buddy, thank u veryyyyyyyyy muchhhhhhhhhh…

  36. Charnita Fance
    Posted March 30, 2010 at 7:09 am | Permalink

    Thanks so much! Really appreciate this :)

  37. Sean
    Posted March 31, 2010 at 7:30 am | Permalink

    Ctrl + Shift + Enter does nothing. I still don’t have the rights to switch on hibernation, despite the fact that mine is the sole account on the computer and therefore must have administrative rights.

  38. Avid
    Posted April 15, 2010 at 9:24 am | Permalink

    Thanks a tonne!
    Simple and easy to understand.
    Did this in a minute and a half….
    Great!

  39. wilfred
    Posted April 18, 2010 at 5:29 pm | Permalink

    windows 7 64bit same problem of dissapearing hibernate option. your trick works here as well.
    well hidden option :-(
    run cmd in admin mode: put shortcut on desktop and rightclick-properties-shortcut-advanced-’run as admin’

  40. Prashant Mathur
    Posted April 20, 2010 at 1:48 am | Permalink

    Use Ctrl(right)+Shift(right)+Enter .. then u’ll get the administrative rights …

  41. Mohsen
    Posted May 2, 2010 at 5:25 am | Permalink

    Great! It worked… Thanks a lot!

  42. Imran
    Posted June 1, 2010 at 8:15 pm | Permalink

    when i type powercfg /hibernate on it says im not allowed to do it

  43. admin
    Posted June 1, 2010 at 10:02 pm | Permalink

    @Imran
    Please make sure that you are opening the Command Prompt with administrator rights.

  44. Gene
    Posted June 15, 2010 at 4:18 pm | Permalink

    Windows 7

    My wife’s computer would wake up from hibernation often. After a while I noticed when the telephone rang, the computer would wake up! Our son, the computer expert, adjusted the bios accordingly and it solved the problem.

  45. George
    Posted June 28, 2010 at 12:08 am | Permalink

    thanks. worked great!

  46. ?emseddin
    Posted June 29, 2010 at 8:18 pm | Permalink

    Thanks you very much!

  47. Vasu
    Posted July 5, 2010 at 9:52 pm | Permalink

    It worked the second option was unknown to me.. thanks a lot for that

  48. Crue Lick
    Posted July 6, 2010 at 8:57 am | Permalink

    Worked great, thanks!

  49. thamz
    Posted July 6, 2010 at 9:41 am | Permalink

    Thanks, works like magic!

  50. rudra pradeepta
    Posted July 9, 2010 at 8:52 am | Permalink

    Thanks for the post, it works for me.. cheers.

  51. Anjan
    Posted August 6, 2010 at 7:01 pm | Permalink

    Thanks for this good post. it helps me

  52. sid
    Posted August 6, 2010 at 7:22 pm | Permalink

    when i tried the above procedure..my pc says..u don’t hav the permission to enable or disable hibernate option

  53. Msique
    Posted August 7, 2010 at 8:22 pm | Permalink

    Hey man thnx!!!!!!!!!

  54. admin
    Posted August 9, 2010 at 9:32 am | Permalink

    @ Sid

    You need to have the admin rights to perform this task. So make sure that you have opened Command Prompt as Administrator.

  55. lantern
    Posted August 17, 2010 at 8:23 pm | Permalink

    thankyou
    so helpful
    I was looking for the way to do that

  56. rain
    Posted August 19, 2010 at 4:24 pm | Permalink

    thank you s very much!!!

  57. vivek
    Posted August 25, 2010 at 9:40 am | Permalink

    my laptop gets hibernate after hitting hibernate but when i power on then it doesn’t resumes then when i press ctrl+alt+del then it resumes. pls give me a solution………….

  58. Mark
    Posted August 31, 2010 at 11:34 am | Permalink

    Thank you so much! this really worked. It’s kind of lame how windows is so hard to use lol. Have to look up these silly instructions to get what we want!

  59. Saidur Rahman
    Posted September 2, 2010 at 7:29 pm | Permalink

    Hi
    Its really helpful document. Thanks a lot. I expect more help from you next time.

    –Rana

  60. Drew
    Posted September 4, 2010 at 2:30 pm | Permalink

    followed cmd instructions. Got back: The request is not supported.The following items are preventing hibernation on this system. There are one or more legacy drivers installed: Aten1pt
    I had hibernation and sleep at first but some update turned them off.

  61. Daniel
    Posted September 4, 2010 at 3:52 pm | Permalink

    Thanks guys it worked just fine

  62. rahultechie
    Posted September 4, 2010 at 11:52 pm | Permalink

    Thanks :)

  63. Angel
    Posted September 6, 2010 at 8:11 am | Permalink

    For those who still after going through with these steps dont get to see the hibernation option, try changing your computer power option to Balanced, since thats the main profile you change. Or change all of the 3 profiles in the advanced power settings to enable hibernation on the 3 power consumption profiles.

  64. Anthony
    Posted September 12, 2010 at 5:31 am | Permalink

    thank you very much! it was very understanding!

  65. Krans
    Posted October 2, 2010 at 10:06 pm | Permalink

    Thank You for your info. Itz really helpful!!!

  66. Norry Zinger
    Posted October 3, 2010 at 8:59 pm | Permalink

    MY daughter’s laptop switched itself off after initiating step two above and i cannot get it to switch on again. Any suggestions what to try please??

  67. Nuwan
    Posted October 6, 2010 at 2:00 pm | Permalink

    Thanks great,
    It worked!

  68. Ali
    Posted October 7, 2010 at 2:50 pm | Permalink

    Thank you very very much, It worked!

  69. Pankaj
    Posted October 18, 2010 at 4:08 pm | Permalink

    Nice tricks and it worked on my Windows 7!
    Thanks for sharing man…
    :)

  70. Moby
    Posted November 1, 2010 at 9:49 pm | Permalink

    Thanks a million!! It worked on my home assembled Asus motherboard computer!!

  71. Sandeep
    Posted November 11, 2010 at 9:33 pm | Permalink

    Thanks dude

  72. atefsaleh
    Posted November 14, 2010 at 7:25 am | Permalink

    Thanks a lot, helped a lot

  73. MK
    Posted November 19, 2010 at 7:24 pm | Permalink

    Thanks, I’ve been searching for this info all over the web .. they all have the first part only, which clearly did not work for me. Thanks again :)

  74. MZ
    Posted November 23, 2010 at 9:48 pm | Permalink

    Thanks a bunch!

  75. Zahid
    Posted November 25, 2010 at 4:58 pm | Permalink

    Thanks a lot..

  76. karthi
    Posted November 27, 2010 at 12:28 pm | Permalink

    thank u so much it was ver helpful to me

  77. DEEPS
    Posted November 30, 2010 at 2:34 pm | Permalink

    Very USeful Thanks

  78. DEEPS
    Posted November 30, 2010 at 2:35 pm | Permalink

    Very USeful Thanks a lot

  79. Rashi
    Posted December 4, 2010 at 1:22 pm | Permalink

    Wow. That really worked. Thanks a ton!

  80. karthi
    Posted December 9, 2010 at 8:40 pm | Permalink

    thank u …the second method is very easy…

  81. Pakistan
    Posted December 15, 2010 at 3:00 am | Permalink

    thanks …its works… :)

  82. Chris
    Posted December 15, 2010 at 12:46 pm | Permalink

    I followed a different follow-through and it wasn’t specific enough. I didn’t know about the administrator rights thing.

    This one helped! THANKS!

  83. Jules
    Posted December 18, 2010 at 8:42 am | Permalink

    Thanks so much! It really helped! Especially since after having to reinstall windows 7 I forgot how I even enabled hibernate ;P

  84. Uday
    Posted December 20, 2010 at 9:46 am | Permalink

    Thanks! Was a simple trick, done the job I wanted.

  85. Brian
    Posted December 27, 2010 at 4:01 pm | Permalink

    I have known about this methord of turning on Hibernation for some time, but I have not been able to find a way to keep the machine turned on for more than 5 seconds ofter trying to hibernate. If you can come up with a way to do that I would be a happy man..

  86. Sourav Agrawal
    Posted December 31, 2010 at 8:03 pm | Permalink

    thanx it really works…
    thanxx..

  87. jai
    Posted January 9, 2011 at 8:56 pm | Permalink

    thanx its workin…..second part is useful

  88. Saransh
    Posted January 17, 2011 at 4:30 pm | Permalink

    Thanks………….dude…:))))))))

  89. SAJ
    Posted January 30, 2011 at 9:03 am | Permalink

    Thank You…!

  90. marius
    Posted February 6, 2011 at 6:38 pm | Permalink

    thanks :D

  91. Aadhaar
    Posted February 12, 2011 at 2:59 am | Permalink

    Thank you so much… It worked for me…

  92. Harish
    Posted February 18, 2011 at 7:59 pm | Permalink

    Thank u so much buddy. it works

  93. abd
    Posted February 20, 2011 at 6:03 pm | Permalink

    thanks it worked fine :-)

  94. adf
    Posted March 13, 2011 at 2:25 pm | Permalink

    Thank u! Solved the problem!

  95. Kaizy
    Posted March 20, 2011 at 4:27 pm | Permalink

    yah…. thnkzz u so much itzz relly helpful for me ….

  96. Mike Smith
    Posted March 23, 2011 at 9:03 am | Permalink

    Thanks a lot, I really appreciate your help, IT WORKED ON VISTA x64! LOVE U!

  97. Daniel
    Posted April 2, 2011 at 2:45 pm | Permalink

    Thanks for your tip. Until I visited this page, I didn’t even realize the Hibernate options wasn’t present in my Start Menu and the Desktop Alt-F4 window. Before I just couldn’t get my system to go into Hibernate mode. I haven’t tested it yet. But I suspect it will work now.

  98. Rajiv
    Posted April 4, 2011 at 4:45 pm | Permalink

    thanks.. it works fine!!!

  99. Josh
    Posted April 5, 2011 at 4:51 pm | Permalink

    Thank you! Simple and straight forward!

  100. Adrian
    Posted April 12, 2011 at 2:17 pm | Permalink

    Thank you! This solved my problem!

  101. dcbe26985@lycos.com
    Posted April 14, 2011 at 2:35 am | Permalink

    THANK YOU! FINALLY figured it out

  102. drWoo
    Posted May 9, 2011 at 1:50 pm | Permalink

    Very thanks for this! It worked on my Win 7 pro 64 upgraded from Vista Business 64.

  103. Yaarub
    Posted May 12, 2011 at 8:43 pm | Permalink

    THANK YOU !!!! Shokraaan :D

  104. Manish Yadav
    Posted May 21, 2011 at 12:54 pm | Permalink

    Thanks it work Successfull

  105. Leorick
    Posted June 4, 2011 at 4:29 pm | Permalink

    Tested and verified working with Win7 Enterprise 64bit also. Thanks.

  106. mashruf
    Posted June 12, 2011 at 4:21 pm | Permalink

    Thanks! It WORKED :D

  107. bram
    Posted June 23, 2011 at 8:47 am | Permalink

    thanks

  108. Michael
    Posted June 26, 2011 at 9:38 pm | Permalink

    thanks a LOT!!! The second option was the one that worked for me. God Bless you.

  109. ofosu michael
    Posted July 6, 2011 at 8:54 pm | Permalink

    tell me how to hibernate,run program and automatically shutdown

  110. harshav
    Posted July 30, 2011 at 9:16 pm | Permalink

    it really works…..my hibernate option has started appearing now……….thans for the help

  111. Minh Nguyen
    Posted August 2, 2011 at 1:06 am | Permalink

    great !
    It’s helpful

  112. dhaishad
    Posted August 26, 2011 at 9:52 am | Permalink

    atlas…i found it here…thank you very much!!!!ur such a big help….

  113. Dylan S.
    Posted September 3, 2011 at 12:42 pm | Permalink

    I read this a few months ago, and after a frustrating trip through the instructions, couldn’t get it to work.
    I don’t know where I went wrong, perhaps it was that I was just getting used to Windows 7… but I missed that last part, with the Hybrid Sleep option.
    Thankfully I researched this page again, and found exactly what I needed!
    Thank you for this post!

  114. ken
    Posted September 5, 2011 at 2:39 pm | Permalink

    thank you sooooo much. It really worked for me and i think the second part is more useful.

  115. Maksud
    Posted September 6, 2011 at 12:12 pm | Permalink

    Thanks, it worked like a charm!!!!!

  116. Stefos
    Posted September 13, 2011 at 11:44 am | Permalink

    thanks!! it worked!

  117. Ali
    Posted September 14, 2011 at 8:49 pm | Permalink

    It was helpful,thanks.

  118. Mohamed
    Posted September 15, 2011 at 12:12 pm | Permalink

    Thanks alot

  119. ahmad faisal noory
    Posted September 19, 2011 at 11:20 am | Permalink

    it was awesome was very nice it helped me too much thanks

  120. CHETANYA
    Posted September 25, 2011 at 1:34 pm | Permalink

    I went through many pages offering many weird solutions……none solved my problem b4 hittn ths page….thx alot

  121. Unsatisfied
    Posted January 7, 2012 at 9:32 pm | Permalink

    Won’t work.

  122. Muzza
    Posted January 10, 2012 at 3:09 am | Permalink

    Spot on… Well written article

  123. Zia
    Posted January 11, 2012 at 7:23 pm | Permalink

    Works like a charm, thanks!

  124. Kamal Prasad
    Posted January 11, 2012 at 11:40 pm | Permalink

    Thanks!!!

  125. Jack
    Posted January 13, 2012 at 1:33 am | Permalink

    Just dropped a comment to say thank you very much. I wonder why it was disabled in the first place though.

  126. Joe
    Posted January 16, 2012 at 8:39 am | Permalink

    Why not just use Hybrid Sleep. It’s better.

  127. James
    Posted January 16, 2012 at 8:59 pm | Permalink

    Great and as people have said, good explanation. And my thanks go to you for you for your time in preparing it for others to use.
    If I could add one thing, between step C and D, in order to see the changes you’ll need to press the APPLY button at the bottom. I say this, since I was checking the Start Menu and nothing changed, then I saw the APPLY button and voila! There it was.
    So thanks again, and preciate your efforts.

  128. Babu
    Posted January 18, 2012 at 10:11 pm | Permalink

    Thanks a lot

  129. James
    Posted January 27, 2012 at 8:25 pm | Permalink

    Works very well. Thanks.

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