With an unmodified Vista install, when you click on your little round start button thingy, and then click on the Power button to turn of your pc, your pc doesn’t really turn off. It goes into Vista Sleep.
I dislike this on general principle. Especially for dual boot machines. When I tell my computer to turn off, I mean off, not nodding into sleep.
Here’s how you can modify your Vista install to turn your box off.
First go to (ready? it’s a long one!) Start -> Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Power Options -> Change Plan Settings (this will be below your current power plan) -> Change Advanced Power Settings.
Phew! Wasn’t that fun?
Now that you’re finally where you want to be, let’s make the change. Look for Power Button Use and Lid. Expand that and find Start Menu Power Button. Change this from Sleep to Shut Down.
Click OK and the next time you mouse jam your Vista power button, your computer will do the right thing.
Technorati Tags: vista, shutdown, sleep, modify, gui hack, wake up
September 3rd, 2007 at 11:15 pm
My-PC-Help.com has a similar article on this. http://www.my-pc-help.com/Articles/KnowledgeBase/tabid/147/topic/Vista+Powerdown+to+Shutdown/Default.aspx
Thanks for writing great articles. Keep up the good work!
September 17th, 2007 at 6:54 am
I hope this works it has been driving me crazy by not shutting down
October 11th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Thanks, great help for newbies, (me)
October 25th, 2007 at 8:27 am
Thanks a lot for this!
November 14th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
thanks it f#@k me off when it went into sleep mode thanks
February 10th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Thats just great - thanks! I really don’t like vista!
February 15th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
i like the register key to make this…. thank’s
November 5th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
thanks- good work
November 27th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
the stuff are different.. well probably differs from what Vista you have.
December 25th, 2008 at 1:58 am
Thank you so much for this tip.
January 3rd, 2009 at 2:06 pm
OMG! my vista start menu is crap as it is! i know that microsoft messed up with vista and this just makes it slightly better than vista was befor; so THANK U!
April 24th, 2009 at 4:38 am
I do not understand what happened. I was an early adopter of Vista; this was the default. I resently upgraded my HDD and uppon initial re-install the POWER button on the start menu did what it is supposed to do. Then after I update my system it goes back to this stupid “sleep” option. It was not broken; why did they change it?
March 20th, 2010 at 10:40 pm
Awesome tyvm arsgeek.com! You rock!