Why Shift + Restart Could Restart Windows 95 Faster

Windows 95 could restart Windows without performing a full machine reboot when the user held Shift while choosing Restart. This was a feature of the old DOS-based Windows architecture, not a speed trick for Windows 10 or 11.

How the fast restart worked

In a January 19, 2026 post on The Old New Thing, Raymond Chen explained that the behavior used the EW_RESTARTWINDOWS flag with the old 16-bit ExitWindows function.

The Windows kernel and virtual memory manager shut down, the CPU returned to real mode, and control passed back to win.com. That startup program then tried to rebuild the state needed to launch protected-mode Windows again.

Why it could fall back to a full reboot

The restart depended on restoring the expected conventional-memory layout. If another program had fragmented the memory that win.com needed, the fast path could not proceed and the program fell back to a full reboot.

Chen also discussed a reader's report of crashes after repeated fast restarts. He could not reproduce it and suggested a driver failing to reset properly as a possible explanation. That was a hypothesis, not a confirmed diagnosis or evidence that every Windows 95 system behaved the same way.

What Shift + Restart does on modern Windows

On Windows 10 and 11, holding Shift while selecting Restart is a way to enter advanced startup and Windows Recovery Environment. It does not invoke Windows 95's win.com restart mechanism. See how to enter Windows Recovery Environment if that is your goal.

Fast Startup is another separate feature associated with shutdown and the next startup. It should not be used as an explanation for this Windows 95 behavior. For that setting, see how to disable Fast Startup. Keep the historical shortcut separate from instructions for a current PC.