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

After getting lots of emails asking for the same question: “How to Change Power Button action 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 the power button in start menu, it doesn’t shut down your system, instead it puts your system in sleep mode which is quite irritating for some people 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 Windows Vista:

1. Type “powercfg.cpl” in RUN dialog box or Start Menu 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.

That’s it. Now your power button in start menu should change and should do the thing which its supposed to do.