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I absolutely hate hate HATE restarting my (Windows 8) laptop. The reason for this is because I generally have an awful lot going on at any time, thanks to working on 4 or 5 concurrent projects as well as a few other tasks. On a usual day, I have:

  • VLC, playing whatever
  • NetBeans
  • Node.JS, running a few utility programs
  • Notepad++, sometimes with unsaved files*
  • Notepad, running 3 or 4 instances of unsaved text files*
  • Word with a few documents, some unsaved files*
  • Chrome, running 30-40 tabs
  • Explorer, 7-8 Windows Open

* these files are not files that need to be saved to disk, but untitled documents that I am using for storing complex sets of notes and ideas about whatever I am working on, but only required for a short period of time, so not saved

Yes, that is a lot of open programs, but my laptop can easily handle it all. In the past, I have gone as much as 2 months without restarting my computer because I can't face going through all my stuff, saving the temporary stuff, then after the restart, re-loading it all to the states I was at before restarting.

So, are there any programs that can handle the restart process for me by closing and saving the open programs to a temporary space, restart the system, and reload all/most of the previous session programs and data from the temporary directory (deleting the temp data after loading)?

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  • Your first problem is you have unsaved doucments. You could save the state on some of those programs through extensions ( i.e. Chrome ) the rest don't really support doing so.
    – Ramhound
    Jul 16, 2013 at 12:02
  • @Ramhound yup, thats the problem i'm getting at
    – topherg
    Jul 16, 2013 at 12:06
  • There is no single solution that woud support all those programs.
    – Ramhound
    Jul 16, 2013 at 12:10
  • Well, I am guessing that each program will need some sort of connector to handle it, but theoretically, couldn't it be done by taking an image of the memory that program is using, then after reloading it, moving that memory image into the same memory space that the new instance of the program is using?
    – topherg
    Jul 16, 2013 at 12:21
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    Sublime Text won't forget unsaved files on exit, so it solves it for Notepad/Notepad++.
    – gronostaj
    Jul 17, 2013 at 8:29

2 Answers 2

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The whole point of a reboot is to 'restart' and reload everything on your computer.

I would add those programs to the start-up programs list. You can see the list of startup programs by typing msconfig in the run dialog.

If you wish to add these programs to the startup list, you can add them in this folder:

For ALL Users copy to : "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup"

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  • You might be able to save some of these docs and .txts to the start up folder and just have them reopen when you restart. And then when you start up they will be open for edit. That means a simple Ctrl + S would save them.
    – iamwpj
    Jul 16, 2013 at 12:46
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You might want to look into HORM (Hibernate Once Resume Many). It was a feature that was added to Windows XP Embedded SP2 back in 2004...

The idea is basically that you get your machine to a state that works well for you, and hibernate. Then, you always boot/resume the machine to that hibernate file. The downside is that you don't resume to unsaved files. The upside is that you boot faster to all the programs up and ready that you use.

I'm not ignoring your desire to separate the programs from the OS, but considering that a few of those programs don't, in any way, run independent of the OS, you can't separate them from the OS to restart just the OS. In truth, it's really just a matter of changing the way you think so that you do start saving even those little temporary files of notes that you say don't need to be saved.

If you set it up properly... meaning standardize some names for those little temporary files, have the programs up and running with those templates up and open, and make your hiberfil.sys from that... you'd be close to where you want to be.

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