Restart System Without Restarting Computer

[fubz]

Is there a way to restart all drivers and everything, etc, on windows without physically restarting the computer?

Edited September 20, 2005 by fubz

[JDoors]

If I remember correctly, logging out then back in does something close to this. I also remember that there's another "trick" to do this, but ... Nope, can't remember what it was.

[TheTerrorist_75]

With Win95/98 you are able to go to Start - Shut Down and select Restart. Hold the Shift key then click OK. This will reboot just Windows. I haven't seen any thing like this for the other Windows OSes.

[fubz]

I'm using XP

[tg1911]

Log off.

Then click the red shutdown button on the bottom left.

In the window that opens, Restart will be one of your options.

[blim]

OK, this has been bugging me all day and I just have to ask.......Why would you want to restart the drivers and everything without physically restarting the computer??? I'm not only nosey but confused (as usual!)....

And...... because this will probably be my next question---we only have one account on this computer--would "logging off" and doing the rest of the steps work? I never tried the "log off" option before. Never had a reason to do it.

Liz

[JDoors]

You might want to do this if you installed something that made a change to the registry or files running in the "background" that Windows would need to "re-read" so it works properly. If you could get Windows to read it without a reboot it would save some time.

Windows might load a driver for example, and if you changed the driver files Windows will not see that 'cause it's already loaded and is running the original driver in memory. You'd want Windows to re-read what driver to use and you really should restart, but sometimes, for some types of files, just logging off then on again will force Windows to re-read those files.

It's not a common practice (hence you never heard of it), it's almost never a recommended practice (your changes may have wide-ranging, unpredictable effects that require a reboot anyway), but I do remember a few programs that included that option in their manual/installation files.

<edit> (Thank rhema7, forgot to address the single user log-out part.) You'd wind up in a default Windows desktop rather than having your user ID's desktop. I have Log-out disabled so I never see that option (used Tweak-UI to disable it rather than manually doing this). I don't think I'd recommend experimenting with this for installation purposes, but if you just wanna see what happens, go for it.

Edited September 21, 2005 by JDoors

[rhema7]

OK, this has been bugging me all day and I just have to ask.......Why would you want to restart the drivers and everything without physically restarting the computer???  I'm not only nosey but confused (as usual!)....

And...... because this will probably be my next question---we only have one account on this computer--would "logging off" and doing the rest of the steps work?  I never tried the "log off" option before.  Never had a reason to do it. 

Liz

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes you can log off with one account

[blim]

Thank you both!!!!!!

Liz

[fubz]

well.... i happen to have a computer that is ghosted, so i want to install ATI drivers and then make windows switch to them so games will actually work. And if i actually restart the system, on startup the drivers are removed. Thus im between a wall and a hard place. And i cannot turn off the ghosting, thats a project for later.