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Yes, I know that hibernate usually applies to a computer. (Hibernate her meaning saving program memory in disk and being able to restore it in a consistent manner.)

However, hibernating a program can be very useful. Suppose I want to play a game, but a few programs like firefox, acrobat take up 500M of memory, so I want to free it up. Closing and then starting can be time-consuming, especially if session data cannot be stored. So instead I go and hibernate them. So is there any way I can hibernate a program?

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What OS are you using? – Ian C. Apr 25 '11 at 5:31
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Windows 7, 64-bit. I also retagged the question. – apoorv020 Apr 25 '11 at 5:32
nice improvement for a OS... – kokbira Apr 25 '11 at 16:10
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Related( but no answers) superuser.com/questions/170434/… – Sathya♦ Apr 25 '11 at 18:17
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There's a related question about this over at StackOverflow. It's more programming related, but the main accepted answer explains why what you're trying to do is hard, and offers a viable alternative.

Basically, run your 'business' apps in a VM, and pause/hibernate/close it when you want to game.

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you said "inviable alternative, did't you? – kokbira Apr 25 '11 at 17:27
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up vote 1 down vote

"Hibernating" an app wouldn't be any faster than just closing and restarting it, although your point about session data is valid. In general there wouldn't be much if any advantage.

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By what logic do you say that hibernating wouldn't be faster? Hibernating and restoring an OS is faster than a reboot. – apoorv020 Apr 26 '11 at 13:34
Think about what hibernating is. It requires copying the program image to hard disk, then copying it back. Closing the program and then restarting it only requires copying it from the hard disk. Windows starts up very slowly, for reasons I don't know. For other OS's, e.g. Linux, hibernating and awakening takes longer than just shutdown and reboot, at least on every system of mine I've tried it on. It's convenient but not fast. – CarlF Apr 26 '11 at 13:48
Well starting some programs is pretty slowtakes alot of time, especially firefox. Not to mention irritating as well. – apoorv020 Apr 26 '11 at 16:34
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