diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index 6e1831fbaa2..26923dece72 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -614,6 +614,7 @@ Release 0.90.5 - Unreleased
                (Jonathan Hsieh)
    HBASE-4238  CatalogJanitor can clear a daughter that split before
                processing its parent
+   HBASE-4445  Not passing --config when checking if distributed mode or not
 
   IMPROVEMENT
    HBASE-4205  Enhance HTable javadoc (Eric Charles)
diff --git a/bin/start-hbase.sh b/bin/start-hbase.sh
index 15e952e91e7..6240ee649ab 100755
--- a/bin/start-hbase.sh
+++ b/bin/start-hbase.sh
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ then
   exit $errCode
 fi
 
-distMode=`$bin/hbase org.apache.hadoop.hbase.util.HBaseConfTool hbase.cluster.distributed`
+distMode=`$bin/hbase --config "$HBASE_CONF_DIR" org.apache.hadoop.hbase.util.HBaseConfTool hbase.cluster.distributed`
 
 
 if [ "$distMode" == 'false' ] 
diff --git a/bin/stop-hbase.sh b/bin/stop-hbase.sh
index 670ec21b94e..73ca7c1297a 100755
--- a/bin/stop-hbase.sh
+++ b/bin/stop-hbase.sh
@@ -59,7 +59,7 @@ done
 echo
 
 # distributed == false means that the HMaster will kill ZK when it exits
-distMode=`$bin/hbase org.apache.hadoop.hbase.util.HBaseConfTool hbase.cluster.distributed`
+distMode=`$bin/hbase --config "$HBASE_CONF_DIR" org.apache.hadoop.hbase.util.HBaseConfTool hbase.cluster.distributed`
 if [ "$distMode" == 'true' ] 
 then
   # TODO: store backup masters in ZooKeeper and have the primary send them a shutdown message