Why do you have to reboot your computer?

Answer 1

You may have to reboot your computer for a number of reasons.

1. Sometimes the operating system or the hardware become unstable. The computer itself may hang because of hardware issues, or the operating system may cause the computer to hang.

2. You may be making changes to the drivers or something deep within the operating system. Typically these types of files are in use and cannot be changed. Even if they are not in use, you would have to reboot the PC before they can be loaded.

3. The software you install may require services, drivers, or operating system extensions that don't already exist on the system and cannot load at any other time but during boot. So you have to reboot in order to load them.

4. Certain utilities require a reboot because they directly alter the file system or directly manipulate the system registry. Altering such things in such a manner while they are in use would likely cause data corruption. So if any changes are made to those things apart from the operating system, then the operating system would have to be reloaded so it can correctly recognize and utilize the changes. Imagine changing the partition size while the operating system is using the partition and the OS doesn't know the partition got smaller and a file being copied onto it is too big for it. That could overwrite the next partition. That would likely not be allowed in the first place, but it is an example of how changes to the file system while it is active could cause problems and create major messes.