Restart and Shutdown Problems by Disabling “Hybrid Shutdown” Feature in Windows 8

Now, at this instant, Windows 8 is launched in its full phase. It has lead to the wide & public use which has also resulted in their problems using this o.s as Microsoft had said that it would change the way people had been experiencing previous operating systems! Many users of Windows 8 are complaining now about the Restart and Shutting down problems. According to some of them, the problems are that the system restarts by itself soon before the login screen appears. These problems appear after the users turn off the Hybrid Shutdown feature. Here, sometimes the system hangs at the time of reboot or shut down.

Mostly these kind of issues are related with the new "Hybrid Shutdown" feature introduced in Windows 8. Hybrid shutdown feature of Windows 8 decreases the total start up time by hibernating the kernel session instead of closing it which reduces the overall Windows loading time because resuming from hibernated system session is very less work compared to a full system initialization.

If you are also facing the same problem then you can also try the following steps.

1. If you are on the new Start Screen, type power and Windows will automatically search for the term and will show you the results.

If you are on Desktop, move your cursor to top-right corner of screen to access new Charms Bar. Now click on "Search" option and type 'power' in search box.

2. Now click on the 'Settings' link given in right sidebar of search results page and then click on "Change what the power buttons do" link given in the search results as shown in following screenshot:

3. It will open the Power Options window. You can alternatively open the same window by typing powercfg.cpl in RUN dialog box and press Enter and then click on the "Choose what the power buttons do" link given in left sidebar.

Now scroll down to bottom and you'll see "Turn on fast startup (recommended)" option given in Shutdown settings section as shown in following screenshot:

Turn On the Fast Startup 

4. Disable the option by unchecking the checkbox and then click on "Save Changes" button.

PS: If the option is not shown or greyed out, scroll up and click on "Change settings that are currently unavailable" link.

5. That's it. Restart your system and your reboot or shutdown problems should get fixed in Windows 8.

NOTE: If the above solution doesn't fix your problem, you can try to execute following command in Command Prompt. Open Command Prompt as Administrator by right-click on the bottom-left corner and select the same option from the Win+X menu:

This above mentioned command was used to fix a very annoying freezing issue found in Windows 8 Release Preview build. According to Microsoft the issue was fixed in Windows 8 RTM but if you are still facing the issue, you can try the command.