Hibernate now, wake your PC later

Is there any reason why Hibernate should not be the default way of closing down a PC — especially a laptop?
Leon Cohen

I recommend setting Hibernate as the default for both laptops and desktops, because your PC starts quickly with all your programs still loaded. Basically, Hibernate saves everything in your PC's memory to a disk file called hiberfil.sys, then reloads it when you wake it up.

However, not all Windows software behaves correctly, especially when it comes to releasing resources. This can lead to PCs gradually slowing down over a period of time. It helps if you close down both Internet Explorer and Firefox roughly twice a week, and I still prefer to reboot Windows XP every week or two, to give software a clean start. If you don't use your PC continuously and intensively, of course, then you should be able to go longer between restarts.