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.

Complete list of AskVG articles

This article was posted in Troubleshooting, Windows Vista.

Share |

15 Comments

Kishan Bagaria

Can you please tell me how to do it in Windows 7
VG

^^ It should be same in Windows 7 as well.
Kishan Bagaria

Oh! ya its same in Windows 7. Thanks
Jenny

THANKSSSSSSSS so much for this. Was having a real hard problem and spent a lot of time trying to figure out last night!
Michelle

THANK YOU. Holy crap...THANK YOU, lol.