A very useful icon to have on your desktop, if you’re like me and use this function a lot, would be a Sleep or Hibernate icon: You could just click a single icon on the desktop and the computer goes for a snooze, one way or another, depending on how it’s set.

Unfortunately Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, didn’t include a Sleep or Hibernate desktop icon by default in XP – But fear not: You can create your own:

The following procedure should work just the same in Windows 7 too. – It works with my Windows 7 RC anyway.

It’s just an icon that sits on the desktop with all the rest of them.

How to make an icon to click (Done in XP.):

Right-click on a blank area of your desktop (Where there are no icons.) and mouse-over “New” in the box that appears. Click “Shortcut”. Another box appears asking you to type the location of the item: Enter in the full command:

“%windir%\system32\rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState”

and click next.

It now asks you to type a name for this shortcut: I named mine, strangely enough, “Sleep or Hibernate”. Why? Because it’s a shortcut icon to make the computer sleep or hibernate – innit?.

Click next, the box vanishes, and an icon appears on your desktop. – Target neutralised.

Any time you want to make the computer sleep or hibernate, just click the icon: It really is that simple!

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The following is not the same in Windows 7: The rest of this article only applies to XP.

Sleep or Hibernate?

Do you want your computer to sleep or to hibernate when you click that icon?

Which one it does will depend on the following setting:

Right-click on a blank area of your desktop (Where there are no icons.)

Click Properties>Screen Saver tab>Power button>Hibernate tab.

If you’re in the right place it’ll look like the picture above: ‘See the tick box marked “Enable Hibernation”? If that’s ticked the computer will hibernate when you click your new icon. If it isn’t the computer will sleep when you click your new icon. – You choose which; after all it’s your machine.

And that, dear reader(s); is that. – Target neutralised.

See also: http://www.pcmech.com:80/article/change-how-your-power-button-operates/