Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. Legacy Archives

How to make your PC’s power button do other stuff

Add as a preferred source on Google

You may have committed this snafu before – You’re doing your thing on your PC, accidentally hit the power button and, oops! You just lost whatever you were working on or ruined your online gaming session, throwing the match and ticking off your buddies off in the process. Thankfully, like a good dog, you can retrain the power button on your PC to behave differently, avoiding such sticky situations altogether down the line. If this sounds like you, we’ll show you how to do just that. It’s simple to pull off as well.

How to make your PC’s power button put your machine to sleep, hibernate, restart and more 

Start off by holding the Windows key and pressing R, which should bring up the Run dialog box. From here, type in “control panel” and press Enter. Then, scroll down to “Power Options” and click on it. To the left of your active power plan, there should be a button labeled “Choose what the power button does.” Click on it.

Recommended Videos

Now, you should see drop down menus which include multiple options. Depending on the selected option, pressing your power button will produce a different result. From here, you can choose to make your power button put your PC to sleep, rest in hibernation mode, or restart it. Once you’ve chosen your preferred action, click “Save changes” at the bottom. 

You’re done! Got questions? Suggestions? Sound off in the comments below.

Konrad Krawczyk
Former Computing Editor
Konrad covers desktops, laptops, tablets, sports tech and subjects in between for Digital Trends. Prior to joining DT, he…
This app turns the iPhone Duo into a pocket-sized Mac
Headroom uses macOS's built-in Screen Sharing to let users control their Mac from the foldable iPhone, without installing additional software on the computer.
Headroom App on Apple iPhone Duo controlling a Mac

The iPhone Duo has barely been out for a day, and someone's already found a way to run their Mac on it. Well, sort of. Headroom, a remote desktop app from MusicFlow, lets users control their Mac from Apple's new foldable phone, with an interface that adapts as the device opens, closes, and folds in half. Think of it as turning a pocket-sized phone into a miniature MacBook, minus the actual MacBook.

Headroom turns the iPhone Duo into a mini Mac

Read more
AI helped uncover a hidden PHP flaw. Now websites worldwide are facing millions of hacking attempts.
A critical PHP vulnerability has websites worldwide racing to install security patches.
php-flaw-websites-under-attack

PHP is the programming language behind roughly 70% of websites, and it just ran into a serious problem. Security researchers used AI to uncover a critical flaw called PHP2Shell, which could let attackers take over web servers, steal data, or disrupt online services. Since the discovery, websites worldwide have been hit with millions of attempts to exploit it.

Hackers moved fast once the flaw went public. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said the attack attempts jumped from tens of thousands within 45 minutes to millions overnight, The Guardian reports.

Read more
Microsoft has begun rolling out Copilot Code for building apps with natural language
The workplace-focused vibe coding tool can pull context from emails, documents, meetings, and chats.
Microsoft Copilot code logo

Microsoft introduced Code last month as one of the three core parts of its revamped Copilot app. The app was pitched as an easy-to-use coding agent that lets users describe what they want to build in natural language, like an app, a tracker, a dashboard, an automation, or a workflow, and Copilot would build it for them.

Essentially, it's a workplace-focused vibe-coding app that turns existing work into a functional app, and Microsoft has begun rolling it out through the Frontier program.

Read more