One pet-peeve I’ve found with Vista (generally, despite the public hate, I like it) is that hibernation feature tends to disappear… usually due to a disk cleanup.  Essentially, when the hibernation save file is deleted, Vista removes the hibernation ability.

Luckily, turning it back on is very easy.

Click the “Start” button, and type cmd… then press Ctrl+Shift+Enter to open in administrator mode. You can also right-click the item “Command Prompt” in the menu and choose Run as Administrator.

From the command prompt, type in the following command:

powercfg /hibernate on

You may have to restart your computer before it will take effect, however I’ve found that it enables hibernation immediately in most cases.

If this doesn’t work for you, there are some alternative methods, but this should work in 98% of the cases.  If it doesn’t, feel free to comment here, and we can shoot you some other ideas.

Enjoy your hibernation!

I haven’t been a fan of Norton products for awhile due to them highly bloating their product and reducing performance.  Well, this has all turned around as they’ve begun a strategic look to performance, and have improved it significantly, while pretty much all the other products out there continue to add bloat.  I’ve changed my tune and am now, once again, recommending Norton products for protecting your computer from threats.

Here is a review from PC Magazine, which I highly agree with:

Norton Internet Security 2009

Most users have a love-hate relationship with their security
software. They love the protection from online and other threats, but they hate the way the software drags down their daily activities. This past spring, Symantec Senior Vice President Rowan Trollope detailed Symantec’s all-out effort to reduce the Norton suite’s impact on performance. And, what do you know—it worked! Norton Internet Security 2009 ($69.99 direct for three licenses) affects performance less than any suite I’ve tested.

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And there’s more good news: The user interface is streamlined and simplified. Most security tasks happen in the background during idle time, entirely without user intervention. Even the installation process is streamlined. The only thing you need do is click one big button that says you agree to the license—after that, the software is fast and completely automatic. From that click to the installed product launching took a minute and a half when I timed it; activation took another minute; and the initial LiveUpdate of malware definitions required one more minute. From zero to 100 percent ready in under 4 minutes? That’s amazing!

Performance Features

As noted, this edition of the suite is all about performance. The utility is designed from the bottom up both to stay out of your way and to demonstrate that it’s staying out of your way. The main window includes a big CPU usage meter that separately tracks system-wide usage and usage specific to Norton. When the system seems bogged down, you can see at a glance what’s to blame.

Tasks like downloading new virus definitions or scanning for malware can take processing power away from user applications, so the product performs these duties only when the system has been idle for a while—10 minutes, by default. A link above the CPU meter opens a huge chart of CPU and memory usage over the last 90 minutes. Typically you’ll see a spike in Norton-specific CPU use during times marked on the chart as idle. The software also supplies a table showing when various background tasks last ran.

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A link below the CPU meter launches another performance tool, Norton Insight, which speeds malware scanning by identifying files that don’t have to be scanned. It checks all executables on the computer against a database of trusted programs and displays a big meter showing just how many files it has exempted—about 90 percent on my test systems. A full scan was proportionally faster after Insight completed its analysis. If you don’t force this full system check by actively launching the tool, it will complete its analysis during idle time.

Norton’s LiveUpdate runs every 8 hours to get new malware definitions and any other needed updates. But in the fight against rogue software, 8 hours is a long time—a modern threat can spread worldwide in that time. So Norton’s “pulse updates” feature checks for new malware signatures every few minutes and streams in any that are available.

This is definitely the slimmest, most unobtrusive Norton ever, yet its protection is top-notch where it counts. Certainly, there are plenty of crusty old users out there who will refuse to believe that Norton can be a quick, speedy suite. Don’t listen to them—they’re living in the past. That’s not to say the suite doesn’t have its problems. The antispam is useless, and the parental controls are rudimentary. But this is definitely the best all-around security suite I’ve ever seen; I’ll be installing it on my own systems. I’ve still got several suites left to review this year, and any one of them has the chance to dethrone Symantec’s, but, for now, Norton Internet Security 2009 is our new Editors’ Choice for security suites. I’ll keep testing, but Symantec has set a dauntingly high bar.

Sub-Ratings:

Firewall:
Antivirus:
Antispyware:
Performance:
Antispam:
Privacy:
Parental Control:

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