We’ve all had the terrifying experience of having a computer turned off while we struggle through a workload. One moment you’re typing in a report and the next you’re looking at a low battery symbol. Well, Microsoft invented a solution to this problem in the form of Restartable Apps, a feature that starts apps you had open on shutdown when you start your machine.
Somehow. What restartable apps actually do is start those apps. What it doesn’t do is put them back where you left them, which makes them somewhat useless. On top of that, it prevents Windows from doing some of the more important things that would normally happen on a reboot, like dumping memory. Unless you find yourself leaving lots of unfinished work open when you shut down Windows, there’s no reason to leave this setting enabled, as it prevents your computer from performing a proper restart.
“Restartable apps” is unintentionally hidden under Accounts in the Settings app. From there, navigate to “Login options”, where you will find a toggle next to “Automatically save my restartable apps and restart them when I log back in”. Go ahead and turn that off.
There are many other small tweaks and fixes that can be made to improve your experience on Windows 11, as well as many third-party solutions. But what we’ve covered here is a good starting point that should make your new operating system feel like the upgrade it’s meant to be.
