By Simon Batt
Publication Date: 2026-01-20 03:15:00
Summary
- Shift+Restart in Windows 95 triggers a fast restart that skips a full reboot.
- win.com used a restart flag, shut down kernels, dropped to real mode, then relaunched protected mode.
- If win.com’s reserved memory was in use, fast restart fell back to a full reboot.
So here’s something I learned 30 years too late. Turns out, if you held down Shift while you restarted it, it would do a “fast restart.” Instead of going through the full process, it should show the message “Windows is restarting” and then quickly get you back up and running again. It probably would have saved me a lot of time if I had known about it.
Regardless of if you…