When I come back from sleep mode, I have to restart explorer.exe

Hey guys, every time my laptop goes to sleep mode, and I log back in, my taskbar and icons are gone! The only way to fix this is to ctrl+alt+del and end explorer.exe, and restart it. Does anyone know why this is happening, and how to fix it??? Thanks a bunch.

Alienware m15x
Vista 32-bit
3G RAM
2.8GHZ Intel Extreme
Nvidia 8800

 

Common problem with Vista.. I suggest you get used to it

 

Stick with using hibernation mode, works just as well and shouldn't give you explorer problems. Only downside is that it will take a couple more seconds to boot up.

 

The only thing I like about Sleep is that it does it automatically after a certain amount of time. Is there anyway to make the computer hibernate after a certain time, instead of sleep? And what exactly IS the difference between sleep and hibernate?

 

I remember having the same question about standby and hibernation a while back and this answer on a different forum was quite informative:

"Shut Down:
Close all running programs and end the session.
Doesn't draw any power.
Safe to transport.

Hibernate:
Take a dump of the RAM and put it in a .sys file in C:
Doesn't draw any power.
Safe to transport.

StandBy:
Keep data in RAM. Shut down all possible hardware, including monitors, NICs, VGA etc. Also assuming you use S3 mode, rather than S1, your CPU and fans turn off as well.
Draw's power to keep data in RAM
If it's a laptop? Safe to move. If it's a desktop? You do the math."

As for your other question about automatic hibernation, I know it could be done within windows xp as illustrated here http://it.usu.edu/htm/faq/faq_q=1389 however I do not yet know how to do this in vista, sorry.

 

Ohh awesome thankyou. So I guess my next question is... knowing this about hibernation, why would I ever shut down my computer when I could just hibernate it? It starts up a bunch faster and uses no power! ??

 

Shutting down is more reliable and gives you a clean slate to start with... no residual programs lingering in the background.

my next logical question would be, with SSD's coming more into the mainstream (and prices coming down slowly), pretty soon we'll be able to boot in under 15 seconds, so why bother hibernating or using 'sleep' mode? since booting is so fast...

 

I think it will still be "nice to have", because you can stop working with a program and "stop drawing power" without closing the program and so you can still go on working with this program some time later without having to "start the program again"

But one reason for only use "shut down" would be this:

Greetings
Julian

 

, hibernation has the same effect with the missing taskbar =[ . does anyone else know a fix?