How to delete hiberfil.sys on Windows 2008 or Vista

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I was (for my sins) working on a Windows Server 2008 box today. To make it worse it was a VM with very little disk space. In trying to find things to remove I found hiberfil.sys sitting there at 4Gb! I tried to delete it but Windows wouldn’t let me. I then went into power settings, disabled hibernation (or so I thought) and tried to delete it again… still no joy.

Anyway, it turns out the easiest (or only, I don’t know) way of deleting this stupid file (why Windows SERVER would need to hibernate anyway is beyond me!) is to drop into command prompt and run the following command:

powercfg -h off

Easy when you know how, but annoying if you don’t!

Stumble it!

3 Responses to “How to delete hiberfil.sys on Windows 2008 or Vista”

  1. fishing organizations Says:

    Thanks so much. I, too saw this stupid file, and, after trying almost every I knew, finally gave up and just accepted that I had lost all that wonderful space.

    Your post gave me the answer. You’re a genius.

  2. beth charette Says:

    WOW, I would never have found that.

    It is always amazing to me how difficult it is for programmers to see all the ramifications of programming decisions they make or don’t make.

    Windows of course has no ONE person who can see everything, consider everything as a whole.

    Working as a programmer myself, we have broken our system up into so many parts, with so many people each having a special function that even humpty dumpty would not be able to fully appreciate the potential for unintended consequences regarding any one change.

  3. Pre Schools in Gurgaon Says:

    I have vista. And altho i do like… on here about vista having … Everyone has problems with Vista. I don’t know anyone that doesn’t have some…

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