I hear that many people running Windows are able to hibernate their computer, temporarily boot some other operating system, then shutdown that other OS and resume Windows right where they left off.
How do I make sure that the next computer I get has this ability?
Is there some way I can get my laptop to do that, or is my laptop simply incapable of doing that?
If this laptop is incapable of doing that, is there a name for "the kind of PC that has the ability to let me hibernate Windows, and boot some other OS, and then later resume Windows where I left off" to distinguish them from "the kind of PC that won't let me do that" (such as my current laptop) ?
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On some computers (such as my HP Pavilion dm1 laptop), after I tell Windows to hibernate and I wait for all the lights to go dark, after I press the power button, the computer boots up directly into windows without ever giving me the option to select some other boot disk or to change bios options.
I thought "hibernate" turned the computer completely off. I thought turning on a computer always gave the "press ESC for BIOS options" (or some similar message) every time it was turned on after being completely off. But that doesn't seem to be the case with some computers, such as my laptop.
(I can tell "hibernate" is different from "sleep". When I tell Windows to "sleep", the light on the power button blinks, and then when I press any key on the keyboard, it quickly wakes up directly into windows. When I tell Windows to "hibernate", all the lights go dark, and none of the keyboard buttons do anything except for the power button.)
Out of all the options "sleep", "hybrid sleep", "hibernate", and "shutdown", only when I tell Windows to "shutdown" do I later get the "press ESC for BIOS options" message the next time it starts up -- only then can I choose to boot this laptop off the flash drive with my other OS. All the other options boot directly into windows, completely bypassing the "press ESC for BIOS options" message.