Windows: How to make Hibernation available

On many computers that I have put into operation so far, it was initially not possible to hibernate the computer using the default configuration of Windows. In other words, the start menu of these computers originally contained only the options for shutting down, restarting and activating the sleep mode, but no option for activating the hibernation.

The background for this is that Windows includes an option in its control panel to deactivate the hibernation mode feature, which can be the case by default on some newly delivered computers or after a new installation of Windows. In this tutorial we would therefore like to take a look at where we can find the necessary settings in the different versions of Windows and how we can enable hibernation if the entry is missing from our start menu.

This tutorial is structured into the following sections:

• Make Hibernation available on Windows 8 to 11
• Make Hibernation available on Windows 7
• How to proceed if the Options are missing
• Activate Hibernation Mode manually
• Initiate Hibernation Mode via Script

Make Hibernation available on Windows 8 to 11

First, let's look at how we can unlock the hibernation option on newer systems such as Windows 11, Windows 10 as well as Windows 8. On each of these operating system versions the process is identical and works as follows:

1. First we open the Power Options. You can find these in the Control Panel or by entering "Power Options" into the Windows search function, which you can find in your start menu.
2. In the Power Options, next, we click on "Choose what the Power Buttons do" on the left side.
3. In the new dialog view, we click on "Change Settings that are currently unavailable", which may require you to enter your administrator password.
4. You will then, under "Shutdown Settings" at the bottom of the window, see some options coming available, that were previously disabled and grayed out. Here we check the box next to "Hibernate - Show in Power Menu” and that's it. In the same place we can also activate or deactivate the sleep mode in the same way.

If the mentioned options for unlocking the hibernation mode are not available on your computer, please note the instructions and suggested solutions described in the section "How to proceed if the Options are missing" of this tutorial.

Make Hibernation available on Windows 7

Even better hidden is the option to make hibernation available on older versions of Windows. Particularly under Windows 7, the activation is so well hidden that you will hardly find it just by trying yourself, as, on the one hand, the option is buried in deep menus and, on the other hand, is only titled indirectly.

1. First, we open the Control Panel.
2. Then we go to the Power Options.
3. Here we see a list of different power plans, one of which is currently active. Behind this active power plan we click on "Change Plan Settings" to edit our current settings.
4. In the next window we click on "Change advanced Power Settings".
5. A new window opens in which we see a list of different points within a tree structure. Here we look for the item "Sleep" and open it using the small cross in front of the title.
6. After that, we open the sub-item "Allow Hybrid Sleep".
7. Under "Allow Hybrid Sleep", there is the entry "Setting" with the two options "On" or "Off". At this point we need to make sure that the option "Off" is selected.
8. After we set the option to "Off" and closed the dialog by clicking the "OK" button, hibernation should be available on your Windows 7 computer.

If the options mentioned here are not available on your Windows 7 installation, please consider the notes and suggested solutions that you will find in the next section.

How to proceed if the Options are missing

If the mentioned options for activating the hibernation option are missing on your computer, we still have a second chance: Regardless of the version of Windows you are using (Windows 7 to Windows 11), we can use the command line tool powercfg introduced with Windows XP, with which you can also configure those power options that are not available via the control panel.

In order to use this tool, we first have to call up the Windows command line interpreter with administrator rights. To do this, we can enter "cmd" into the start menu search, then right-click on the program and select "Run as Administrator" from the context menu. After entering the password, we enter the following line into the command prompt and then confirm the command using the Enter key:

powercfg -h on

This command calls the powercfg tool with the parameters "-h" and "on". The "h" stands for "hibernation", while the "on" stands for switching on. On the one hand, this command activates the "hibernation" feature and, on the other hand, it ensures that the hibernation file "hiberfil.sys" is automatically reactivated (we can undo that again with "powercfg -h off"). One reason for the missing hibernation options may be that this file, in which the system state is saved when hibernation is activated, does not exist.

If also the command "powercfg -h on" fails and the hibernation mode can still not be activated as a result, this may be due to missing or outdated drivers, which need to be updated in this case, or it may also be that you run Windows in an environment that does not allow hibernation. This can be the case, for example, if you have installed Windows on a virtual hard disk (VHD) that you operate via a virtual machine such as Virtualbox.

Activate Hibernation Mode manually

After we have successfully gone through the steps mentioned in this tutorial, we should now - in addition to "Shutdown", "Restart" and "Sleep" - find the option "Hibernate" in our start menu. By selecting this option, we can then manually put our computer into hibernation mode.

Initiate Hibernation Mode via Script

Alternatively, we can also initiate the hibernation mode via a batch script or the command line. How this works and what the corresponding commands are, I explain in the tutorial about activating the Windows hibernation or sleep mode using a script. In this tutorial you will also learn how to activate the hibernation mode only after a specified time delay and what other command line parameters you can use.