Disable hibernation on Windows 7 and Windows 8 based systems – standalone and GPO configs

You've wondered how to disable hibernation in Windows 7 (W8) and why? Hibernation function on W7 (vista, 8) uses hiberfil.sys hidden system file for fast wake up. When activated hiberfil.sys is created at the root filesystem. Unfortunately, this file is usually very large depending on how much your system has physical memory. Example of my laptop loaded with 8 Gb of RAM.  The image below shows that the hiberfil.sys has 8.3Gb of size. This might be a problem on computers using smaller SSD drives.  So you can make a choice to disable the hibernation and gain some good space on your disk, especially if have only 128Gb SSD and not enough space. How to disable hiberfil.sys on Windows 7 or Windows 8? Very simple to do it on single system or via GPO. Especially the latter one can be useful when wanting to disable hibernation on a group of computers joined in a domain.

If you want only to disable hiberfil.sys on single system, or in a system that is not joined to a domain, there is a single command to pass through the command line (off for deactivating or on for activating the hibernation) via an elevated cmd prompt type:

powercfg -h off

But there is a better way to do it through a group policy objects (GPO), which can be used to activate this option on group of computers joined to Microsoft domain.

How to disable hibernation on Windows on via GPO?

You can have a group of mobile computers in your domain running smaller SSDs and you can activate all of them for configuration where the hiberfil.sys gets disabled.

• On a server with Group policy management console installed (usually your DC) go to start > execute > gpmc.msc
• Create new GPO and link it to a container where you have the computer accounts of the PCs you want to work on.

• Then right-click the GPO you've just create and click edit to open a new window.
• Navigate to Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative templates > System > Power Management > Sleep Settings
• Select Turn Off hybrid sleep (plugged in) policy and click Enable.

• For immediate action run this command via command line:

gpupdate /force

This policy setting allows you to turn off hybrid sleep. If you enable this policy setting, a hiberfile is not generated when the system transitions to sleep (Stand By). If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, users control this setting. Note that there is another one which you might consider enabling. This one is called Turn of hybrid sleep (on battery).