Soft Reboot

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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.

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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.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.

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