At most, you??™ll see four choices under each option: Do nothing, Sleep,
Hibernate, and Shut down. The Hibernate option only appears if hibernation
is turned on, as described in the previous section. And if you don??™t see
the Sleep option, your BIOS or video driver may not support it.
By default, the red power button in Vista??™s Start menu is set
to Sleep. While this makes for quick startup and shutdown,
it also means that your PC will continue to suck electricity
even when it??™s presumably off. And if your PC isn??™t fully
compatible with Vista??™s Sleep mode, you may lose data if
you cut power to your PC. To prevent this situation, set the
Start menu power button option to either Shut down or
Hibernate.
Next, scroll up just a bit and expand the Sleep branch. Here, you can use
the Sleep after and Hibernate after options to have your PC automatically
put itself to sleep after a certain period of inactivity. Think of these settings
as a more ecologically friendly??”but less entertaining??”alternative to the
screen saver.
See ???Improve Battery Life,??? later in this chapter, for a way to automatically
change your power button and lid settings when you switch between AC
and battery power.
Time to wake up
While in Standby, Sleep, or Hibernate mode, your PC waits for you to hit
the power button??”or optionally press a key or move the mouse??”at which
point it powers up and resumes your previous Windows session.
All sorts of devices can be used to wake your PC when it??™s asleep, such as
your keyboard, some kinds of mice, network adapters, and modems.
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