Send it to the Recycle Bin or Sleep/Shutdown? I stand upon the rooftop and screen to the tech giants who design modern laptops. HP and Dell this design choice feels like a personal attack against consumers and repair shops alike! We understand that the palm rest of a laptop contains vital space and using every possible square inch is important, but placing the Delete Key and the Power Button side by side is just poor design.
As devices have become smaller, manufacturers have combined the Power Button with the Keyboard creating additional issues. If your laptop is exposed to liquid and the keyboard stops working, it often prevents the laptop from being used until the entire keyboard is replaced. Why? Because you can't turn the device back on if you accidently shut it down or let the battery drain all the way down. On earlier models the Power Button circuit was not shared with the Keyboard Circuit and Ribbon Cable. If your keyboard wasn't functioning you could use a Wired or Wireless USB Keyboard and the Power Button was isolated from the keyboard built into the laptop. If you need your power button programmed to do something other than accidentally interrupt your work here are the steps to change what the Power Button does on your laptop:
In Windows, it is possible to set the default action for the hardware power button of your Desktop PC or Laptop. When you press it, the operating system can perform one of the following actions: do nothing, shut down, turn off the display, sleep, or hibernate. Let's see how to configure this feature.
How to customize power button action when pressed on Windows 10
Although nowadays it's more common to use the power options in the Start menu to shut down Windows 10, there are still many users who feel more comfortable pressing the hardware power button to turn off their computers.
If you're in the group of users who prefer to use the physical button, you can also change its behavior to either do absolutely nothing, sleep, hibernate, shut down, or turn off the display when you press it. Something that can come in handy in many scenarios, for example, if you have a tablet, and you want it to hibernate instead of sleep to save battery life. Or on a desktop PC, you may prefer to use sleep mode instead of shutting down to resume the device more quickly.
In this Windows 10 guide, we'll walk you through the steps to change the power button action on your device using Control Panel
How to change power button action using Control Panel Windows 10
1. Open Control Panel.
2. Click on System and Security.
3. Under "Power Options," click the Change what the power buttons do link.
4. Using the drop-down menu for "When I press the power button" select the action you want:
Do nothing.
Sleep.
Hibernate.
Shut down.
Turn off the display.
5. Click the Save changes button at the bottom of the window.
How to customize power button action when pressed on Windows 11
To change the power button action on Windows 11, use these steps:
1. Open Start.
2. Search for Control Panel and click the top result to open the app.
3. Click on Hardware and Sound.
4. Click on Power Options.
5. Click the Choose what the power button does option from the left pane.
6. Under the "Power button and lid settings" section, use the When I press the power button option for "On battery" and "Plugged in":
Do nothing.
Sleep.
Hibernate.
Shut down.
7. Click the Save changes button.
Once you complete the steps, the power button will perform the specified action.
Windows 10 and Windows 11 Video Guide to Change Power Settings
If Video Guide is more your speed, you can follow one of these guides. You'll notice that there is more than one or two ways to access the Control Panel in Windows 10 or Windows 11 but you end up getting to the Power Options panel either way.