«
»

Changing the unresponsive Vista Power button

If you’re on Vista, one of the annoyances is when you hit the Power button, but your system just won’t shutdown and keeps going to a sleep state. In fact, the default function of the Power button in Windows Vista is Sleep.

The task of changing the power button action is much easier in Windows 7. You just need to right-click “Start” menu and then select “Properties”. The option to change the power button action will be available on the “Start Menu” tab of the properties dialog box that opens. In Vista though, this is one of the gripes.

If you’d like to have the Power button to shut down your PC, here’s how:

  • Click the “Start” button, type cmd in the “Start Search” box and then press Enter.
  • In the Command Prompt window that opens, type the following command powercfg.cpl,1 and then press Enter
  • This will display the Power Options dialog box.

Vista power button options

You can access this dialog box through Control Panel also. In the Control Panel, you need to select Power Options > Change Plan Settings > Change Advanced Power Settings.

  • Now, browse to and expand the “Power buttons and lid” option.

Vista power button options

  • Here, you can change the settings of both the hardware power button on your computer and the power button on the Start menu. You can choose to change the power button action to Sleep, Hibernate or Shutdown.

Vista power button options

Note: The screenshot above is taken on a laptop. You can see that you can configure separate power button settings when your laptop is on battery power, and when it is plugged in to power. In battery mode, it is best to configure the power button action to shutdown or hibernate mode; this helps you save battery power for later.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 19th, 2010 at 11:15 am and is filed under Windows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

13 Responses to “Changing the unresponsive Vista Power button”

  1. Nice One! I have been using Vista for some time and didnt know you could change that feature….

    Hope it works on my desktop too

  2. This is a great guide. I am using Vista and your post is a big help. Thank you for sharing it.

  3. top guide! big help to me this.. thanks alot

  4. Why is it that i never find these things out myself?

    Great thanks i was really looking for this for my son’s pc.

  5. Thank you – great resource this. Trying to run a new photography business from home and Vista driving me mad!

  6. thanks for the tips, I feel a bit confused with vista

  7. Bullseye!! I thought this feature of Vista won’t be change because it is confusing to click the power button. . Thanks for giving us tips on how to configure it. .

  8. This works quite well, but I have another question

    can you post how to change your image folders to add the date added/modified column

    I have tons of images and trying to find the write one is usually easier by date…

  9. thanks a lot.but please use the save model….

  10. Thanks you for such a helpful information. I was unknown of this function. it is really helpful.

  11. I was surfing for some fresh tech stuff and came across this on Yahoo! This is a very interesting write-up! Thank you for posting this!

  12. This is helpful. Switched to Windows 7 some months ago and it sure is an improvement. Thank you kindly.

  13. Brilliantly clear tutorial, thank you so much.

Leave a Reply