Yesterday I told you that suspend mode is not worth having turned on. Today I’m going to show you how to turn it off.

The method is quite simple in both Vista and XP. Since I only have XP available to me I’ll show you that method and then you’ll be able to extrapolate how to do it in Vista.

Start by going to the Start Menu and then selecting the Control Panel. Once in the Control panel go to “Power Options.”

This is where XP and Vista split apart in what to do. In XP, on the Power Schemes Tab you want to disable the timer for system standby. Set it to “never” both on battery (assuming you are using a laptop) and on powered mode. Next click the advanced tab and change the option “When I close the lid on my computer” to “Do Nothing.” This will disable it from sleeping when you close the lid and instead make it just turn off the screen but leave the machine on. You could alternatively make it shut down, but I’d recommend you specifically tell it to shut down when you want it off and watch to make sure it does actually turn off. Windows has a bad habit of not shutting down when you don’t stare at it to make sure it does shut down.

On windows Vista, instead of tabs to click you’ll find the places you want to go in the power options as links on the left side bar. I don’t remember the exact titles but there are two you want to edit. One is something like “Choose when my computer sleeps” and the other is “Choose what to do when I press the power button” or something to that effect. Explore the power options a little bit, the two steps listed above are not far away.

This will disable suspend/sleep mode and you’ll live happily ever after! — that is until windows crashes a horrible and unthinkable death as it always seems to do =P.

God Bless,
-Daniel Kolansky