Summary

This article tells how to configure the Power button and the sleep button (keyboard) as per your needs.

Changing the buttons functionality

To apply changes to all the Power plans (a.k.a Power schemes in Windows XP)

• Click Start, type POWERCFG.CPL and press Enter
• From the Tasks pane, click Choose what the Power buttons do
• Under Power and sleep button settings, select the required drop-down option
• Click Save changes and close the dialog

To apply changes to a particular Power plan

To configure the Power and sleep button functionality to a particular Power plan, follow these steps:

• Click Start, type POWERCFG.CPL and press Enter
• Click Change plan settings link under the Power plan you want to customize
• Click Change advanced power settings
• Double-click Power buttons and lid
• Double-click one of the button entries which you want to customize
• Select the required entry from the drop-down (Do nothing/Sleep/Hibernate/Shutdown)
• Click OK

Changing the  Start menu power button action

In the above dialog, you can also specify the action to take when you press the Start menu Power button. By default it's configured to go into Sleep mode (Sleep is a new Power state introduced in Windows Vista.), but you can also configure it to shutdown or hibernate the system. Note that the Tooltip text for the Power button in the Start menu (the red button) changes according to the option you set in the above dialog.