How Windows Vista shuts down
In Vista, Microsoft changed the way that the shutdown button looks and works. The default action does not actually shut down the system but puts it into “sleep”, a kind of stand-by mode that eventually goes into hibernation if the machine is not used. If you want to actually turn off the PC, there are some extra steps involved. Many PC users have been confused by this change and are not aware that clicking the shut-down button does not in fact shut down. Well-known developer Joel Spolsky blogged about this when Vista came out and complained:
I’m sure there’s a whole team of UI designers, programmers, and testers who worked very hard on the OFF button in Windows Vista, but seriously, is this the best you could come up with?
I’ve had several people complain to me about how they didn’t understand how to turn their Vista computer all the way off so I am going to show how it’s done.
Figure 1 shows the the area of the Vista Start Menu where the shut down functions are located. The shutdown button is just to the right of the Start Search line and is indicated by the pointer. This is where most people click to shut down their computer. However, the default action obtained from clicking the button is to put the computer in “sleep” mode.
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To see the entire menu of shutdown options, it is necessary to place the mouse pointer on the small triangle on the far right side of the area. Figure 2 shows the menu.
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Thus, in the standard configuration of Vista, completely shutting down the PC requires going to the menu shown in Figure 2 and clicking the entry “Shut Down”. Vista SP1 is quite stable and many users may be satisfied to use the quick method of putting the PC in “Sleep” mode. However, if you are worried about power consumption or for other reasons wish to have the default action changed to “Shut Down”, that can be done in Control Panel. I’ll cover that in another post.
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What was Microsoft Thinking???
When my Computer goes into standby mode there is no way to wake it up again, short of unplugging it…
To make matters worse to restore the power button it is hidden in a super secret control panel location that takes 50 billion clicks to find and fix.
At least in Windows 7 the power button works the way it should…