Have you noticed the presence of a large file named hiberfil.sys located at the root of your system disk? You can remove it by disabling Windows hibernation.
If you occasionally examine the contents of your system drive – the drive where Windows is installed, usually (C:) – you may have found a curious file called hiberfil.sys. File all the more mysterious since it generally weighs several gigabytes and you have never created it… What is it and what can you do with it without putting your PC in danger?
What is the role of the hiberfil.sys file?
Do not panic, this file is not the result of a nasty virus. It is simply a temporary file created automatically by Windows itself – version 10, 8 or 7 – to keep the full contents of RAM when the PC goes into hibernation. Remember that this mode – also called hibernation – is different from simple standby.
In simple sleep, the computer turns off its main electronic components, but it continues to power the RAM in which it keeps everything that was open, allowing it to wake up instantly. Two disadvantages: the PC still consumes energy to maintain the contents of the Ram and, in the event of a complete power failure – on a model without battery obviously -, it loses everything that was open, as if it had been abruptly turned off…
In hibernation, the computer turns off all its components, RAM included, by first copying the entire contents of its memory to its main disk. A little longer, but safer and more economical i And it is precisely the hiberfil.sys file which is used to accommodate everything that was in RAM. There is nothing special to do, Windows takes care of everything.
Since it contains the system with all software and documents open at the time of sleep, hiberfil.sys is quite large. Which can make you want to get rid of it to save some space on the disk. It’s possible, but we don’t recommend it: hibernation indeed offers many more advantages in everyday life in terms of comfort than the few gigabytes it borrows.
It is not possible to erase hiberfil.sys as one does with any file. All you have to do is turn off hibernate and let Windows get rid of it. There are two ways to do this: with the Windows Control Panel or via the command prompt. But since the manipulations to find the right setting in the power options are really tedious – especially under Windows 10… –, it is much easier to type a command line, especially since it works with all versions of Windows since 7!
- Type the keyboard shortcut Windows+Rthen, in the window Executeenter cmd in the input field. Then type the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Shift + Enter to validate and open the command prompt in administrator mode.
- In the command prompt window, after system32>type powercfg -h off then validate with the key Hall.
- That’s it: hibernation is disabled and the hiberfil.sys file will disappear!
- To restore hibernation, simply perform the same manipulation by typing the command powercfg -h on.
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