Don’t forget to reboot

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The other day I was trying to search for an app on my computer and the search ability wouldn’t work. Now I have already done the registry entry to dis
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Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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abbodi86, Sueska, Mark, lmacri

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We go two steps beyond systematically rebooting our computers to clear temporary data, reinitialize drivers and hardware devices as well as clearing memory.

We periodically run CCleaner’s Custom Clean app to clear selective options from:

• Edge Chromium,
• Internet Explorer,
• System,
• Firefox,
• Thunderbird,
• Brave,
• Windows Store,
• Applications,
• Internet,
• Multimedia, and
• Windows

We also periodically open the HP Support Assistant and “Optimize your performance” to:

• Delete system temporary files,
• Delete system prefetch files,
• Execute a file checker,
• Empty the recycle bin, and
• Clear history, cookies and cache from supported installed browsers.

We also periodically check to see what programs run at startup and disable those that are not required to be running.

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Curious to know the software you use for checking on programs that run at system startup. Personally, I am a big fan of autoruns from Microsoft.

Get up to speed on router security at RouterSecurity.org and Defensive Computing at DefensiveComputingChecklist.com

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rChaz

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We use Windows 10 and use one of the following to control apps at startup.

Option one, from the Windows Desktop go to:

• Settings,
• Apps, and
• Startup.

From there you can see your apps and if they are turned on or not at startup.

Option two is to go to CCleaner and then:

• Tools then
• Startup.

From there you can make adjustments to the apps that start when the computer is turned on.

Or you can go to Task Manager (Ctrl, Alt, Delete at the same time) and see what applications are running on the computer.

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In this day and age rebooting should NEVER be necessary.

In fact, the core of the OS no longer needs it. It’s just an incessant addition/changing of layers near the application level that remain unstable.

To that end, it’s quite likely that just logging out/in will correct most accumulated problems.

FWIW, I’ve moved up to Windows 11 in the past year, and find that it can run virtually forever without reboot – or at least between Windows and driver updates. Arguably, in a software engineering role, my computer probably does more work than most PCs. And notably, I have tweaked and tuned it for performance and reliability, shunning many of the IMO extraneous “features” that tend to destabilize it. In fact, I’ve found (happily) that about 80% to 90% of the tweaks that helped with systems even as far back as Windows 7 and 8.1 are still applicable to Windows 11. Mostly, if you leave behind most things implemented since then, Windows 11 can be a productive desktop system.

Following my own advice above, I have indeed logged out at least once this month. Not more than twice. No reboots since last Windows Update; my uptime at the moment is 21+ days. I’m now considering installing Windows updates a little earlier this cycle, based on the MS-DEFCON 4 advice above.

Advice to reboot is not wrong; in 2024 it just really should not be necessary to give!

-Noel

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rChaz, Cybertooth

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I make it a practice to reboot after every windows update or program installation and then when I am happy that no more needs doing, I do a shutdown and reboot — solves a lot of issues in win 11

mbhelwig

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Old dog. Old tricks. I don’t know how many times I told people “switch off, wait a minute, switch on” since mini-computers were as tall as I am. Cold-boot is still used occasionally.

Ideally, restart should not be necessary. However, Windows is an incredibly complex program operating in a complex environment of third party hardware and software.

 

Group A (but Telemetry disabled Tasks and Registry)
1) Dell Inspiron with Win 11 64 Home permanently in dock due to "sorry spares no longer made".
2) Dell Inspiron with Win 11 64 Home (substantial discount with Pro version available only at full price)

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SteveTree wrote:

“switch off, wait a minute, switch on”

This will not work correctly with the default Windows settings due to fast startup. In Windows, restarting no longer equals shut down, wait, power on – unless fast startup is disabled.

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I always instruct users to lock their workstations on breaks/lunch, and to reboot at the end of the day.  All of our automated IT housekeeping is done after-hours, to keep the workday as productive as possible.

I remind them if they don’t, and they leave files open overnight, it’s at their own peril.  Hardware manufacturer driver and BIOS updates, Microsoft Updates, and our third-party endpoint management software will reboot their workstations (and the servers), in the middle of the night to apply patches.  Nightly backups may skip open files.

Like everything else in life, some folks learn by reading, others by observing, and others by doing (or not doing in this case).  It typically takes only one occurrence of a corrupted Excel spreadsheet to drive home the point.

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OK, I missed explaining that part.

Change what the power button does (shut down) and disable hibernation (ridiculous option IMO).

Group A (but Telemetry disabled Tasks and Registry)
1) Dell Inspiron with Win 11 64 Home permanently in dock due to "sorry spares no longer made".
2) Dell Inspiron with Win 11 64 Home (substantial discount with Pro version available only at full price)

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Aside from Windows Updates & some driver updates, it’s rare that I ever reboot Win11. (May have to kill an Explorer or logout/in for a registry setting to take effect.)

However, there have been a couple situations (at least in the early iterations of Win11) where I couldn’t successfully install (older) software unless it was *immediately* after booting.  This mostly involved installing software that uses older Microsoft Visual C++ redistributables.

 

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