How to Change Power Button in Windows Vista to Shut Down the System instead of Sleep?

After getting lots of mails asking for "How to Change Power Button in Windows Vista to Shutdown instead of Sleep?", I decided to post a small step-by-step tutorial so that everyone can use it.

In Windows Vista, when you click on power button in startmenu, it doesnt shut down your system, instead it puts your system in sleep mode. Which is irritating for some ppl like those who have dual boot system and want to start other OS next time they switch on their system.

So following is a step-by-step method to change power button function in Vista:

Before:

After:

1. Type "powercfg.cpl" in RUN dialog box or Startmenu Search box and press "Enter" key. It'll open "Power Options" window. You can also open it from "Control Panel".

2. Click on "Change plan settings" under your current plan as shown in following screenshot:

3. In next screen click on "Change advanced power settings". It'll open a new window as shown in following screenshot:

4. Now expand "Power buttons and lid" and click on "Start menu power button". Now change "Sleep" to "Shut Down" from the drop down box and Apply it.

Thats it. Now your power button in startmenu should change and should do the thing which its supposed to do.

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This article was posted in Troubleshooting, Windows Vista.

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15 Comments

Manan

I wanted to write a tutorial on this for my friends when i came across that stupid Administrator problem i posted on MeraWindows :p
VG

Heh. Now forward it to your friends.
ravi

Most people feel need of this.
hotrod

Thanks. I've been wanting to do this for months.
VG

Welcome guys.
Felix

Nice one I will do it.
Malinga

Thanks lot for your steps.It help me a lot to give the path.

Thanks.
Slipline

Thank you. wanted to do that for some time, just didn't know how.
blabla

And I thought Vista would be easy... think again. Thanks for the guide though
smvd3k

This change did not work for me.. I want the button to glow red so I can shut down. I did the procedure above and set the power button to shut down many times on different profiles and added different profiles.

any idea how to change it. I am running Vista SP1 regedit version 6.0