Soft Reboot

What Does Soft Reboot Mean?

A soft reboot is an action that uses a software to restart a computer without removing the computer's power.

Also known as a soft boot.

Techopedia Explains Soft Reboot

There are two ways to do soft reboot on Windows:

• Ctrl + Alt + Delete key combination and
• Selecting "Shut Down" or "Restart" from the start menu.

In theory, a soft reboot should generally be OK. As any experienced network admin will tell you, for whatever reason, hard reboots are often necessary.