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With Vista, Microsoft decided that the default power down option available on the Start menu should put your computer into sleep mode. Personally, I liked the XP method better whereby the Shutdown menu gave you several options to Shutdown, Sleep or Hibernate, pretty simple. Vista went and made it more complicated.
I only used basically two of them, Shutdown or Hibernate. In Vista you will find no less than 7 options for turning off your computer or putting it into one of several “standby” modes. In addition to the secondary power off menu (which is accessed by the small arrow at the bottom of the Start menu) there is the Power button on the start menu.
The Power button does not turn off your computer in its default settings; it places your computer into “sleep” mode. Sleep mode offers a very quick resume of less than two seconds but the Sleep and Hibernate options have a problem in Vista. After resuming from either mode do not be surprised if your CPU usage is exceedingly high. This is why it is nearly impossible for me to use either mode on any of my computers so now they are just either completely on or completely off.
Besides, the Power button should shut down the computer anyway, right, so let’s go ahead and take care of that. The easiest way to get to the Power Options is to just type power in the Start menu search box or find Power Options in the control panel (I’d just use the search feature to get to it).
Now, click on the power plan currently in use and go to Change Plan Settings and then to Advanced Power Settings. Click the “+” sign next to Power buttons and lids and then do the same next to Start menu and power buttons, select the shutdown option. You can do this for only the plan currently in use but I set it on all plans so Vista doesn’t try to surprise me.
If you want a video of how to do this head on over to Cnet Videos and let them walk you through it.
I think it’s kind of cool that after changing the power button from sleep to shutdown it changes color from Yellow to Red as seen below:



Source:VISTA.BLORGE.com » Blog Archive » Make Vista shutdown easier