Good idea to restart, not shut down, about once a week if you’re using Windows.

lol, I had my Linux PC running for over a year continuously once, with no issues. Only had to reboot because a power outage lasted longer than my UPS could keep it running.

It only clears things out on a restart for some reason.

Because Microsoft, in its infinite wisdom, decided to turn ‘shut down’ into a sleep/hibernate mode instead, in order to deliver faster boot times. (Instead of, you know, actually making the OS faster and more efficient for faster boot times.)