Hibernate in Windows XP?

[pranav81]

Hi guys,
I had disabled the hibernating option for so many days.But I recently enabled it from Power Options in Control Panel.I then set the option to hibernate when I press the Power button on the computer.
I tried hibernating the machine by pressing the button and it went right into hibernation.I then checked the Shut Down..... in the Start Menu and to my surprise only "Shut Down,Restart and Standby" options are shown.There is no Hibernate button.But the machine hibernates when I press the power button by saying "hibernating" and resumes by saying "Resuming Windows" when I switch it on.
So,why isnt the hibernate button coming in the Shut Down...menu?
Waiting for some posts....
Thanks in advance,


::Pranav::

[Han]

This is not a bug, but a special feature of Windows XP.

Hibernate appears instead of Stand By if you press a SHIFT button...

[dodecahedron]

can someone give a clear and concise expalanation of what's the difference between Hibernation and Standby?
(could never figure it out properly... )

[Han]

By hibernating you actually shut down the machine. All the settings are flushed from memory to the hard drive. Therefore, it's extremely important that system RAM is error free!

Stand by doesn't fully shut down the PC - the power is still on... it doesn't flush the system memory.

[dodecahedron]

do you mean that literally the machine is turned off?
so what's the diff between Hibernate and shutting down?

[Han]

Yes, the machine is turned off when you choose Shut Down or Hibernate.

Hibernate is useful because it saves the status of your Windows XP session (all the programs and documents you have open) to the hard drive, so it can automatically restore it the next time you power up...

[pranav81]

Thanks Han.I just thought that there is a fourth button called hibernate.
Dodecahedron,in standby the system enters a low poer state.i.e.,the HDD's and processor fans are shut down to save power and the work is all in the memory.In hibernate,the contents from memory are taken into HDD and the computer is totally shut down.When you again start the computer,it is restored exactly as you had left it.So if a power outage occurs during standby,the data in memory is lost.
Hope this helps.Thanks Han once again...I still am not aware of Micrsoft Windows XP's different ways.....!!!Thanks!!

See ya guys later,


::Pranav::

[pranav81]

Dear Han,
Hi.Why do you say that the system RAM should be error free?I have checked my RAM by Memtest and it has reported that the RAM is free of errors.Is that sufficient,I mean is my RAM good?
What happens if RAM is not error free?
Waiting for your reply,


::Pranav::

[Han]

Memtest is quite good for testing RAM, but not 100% reliable. None of such programs is. And even if the RAM is good, there might be something else that will screw the system...

If your system isn't 100% WinXP compatible, i.e. everything doesn't work as supposed, there are hardware issues, drivers and other software have too many bugs, you might experience problems at waking up the system from hibernation. If the RAM isn't error free, it's not flushed correctly and the system can't be restored properly, or can't be restored at all...

[pranav81]

Thanks Han for the answer.
See ya guys later,

::Pranav::