Section 1.5. Start (Sleep): All Versions


1.5. Start (Sleep): All Versions

The button, at the bottom of the Start menu's right column, is the trigger for one of Vista's most useful new features, Sleep mode. Yes, that's right: one of the best things about Vista is how it behaves when you turn it off .

Millions of people shut their PCs off every day, but they shouldn't; it's a huge, colossal waste of time on both ends. When you shut down, you have to wait for all your programs to closeand then the next morning, you have to reopen everything, reposition your windows , and get everything back the way you had it.

Millions of other people, therefore, avoid the whole problem by leaving their computers on all the time. That, of course, represents a massive waste of electricity and isn't great for the environment.

A few people knew about Standby mode and used that instead. This special state of PC consciousness reduced the amount of electricity the computer used, putting it in suspended animation until you used the mouse or keyboard to begin working again. Whatever programs or documents you were working on remained in memory.

When using a laptop on battery power, Standby was a real boon. When the flight attendant handed over your microwaved chicken teriyaki, you could take a break without closing all your programs or shutting down the computer.

Unfortunately, there were two big problems with Standby, especially for laptops:

  • The PC still drew a trickle of power this way. If you didn't use your laptop for a few days, the battery would silently go deadand everything you had open and unsaved would be lost forever.

  • Drivers or programs sometimes interfered with Standby, so your laptop remained on even though it was closed inside your carrying case. Your plane would land on the opposite coast , you'd pull out the laptop for the big meeting, and you'd discover that (a) the thing was roasting hot, and (b) the battery was dead.

In Windows Vista, Microsoft has fixed Standby. Now it's called Sleep, and now it doesn't present those problems.

First, drivers and applications are no longer allowed to interrupt the Sleep process. No more Hot Laptop Syndrome.

Second, the instant you put the computer to sleep, Vista quietly transfers a copy of everything in memory into an invisible file on the hard drive. But at the same time, it still keeps everything alive in memory, in case you return to the laptop (or desktop) and want to dive back into work.

In that casewhen you return within 15 minutes or sothe next startup is lightning-fast. Everything reappears on the screen faster than you can say, "Redmond, Washington." After you've enjoyed the speed of a power-up from Sleep mode, the normal startup seems interminably, unbearably slow.

But now suppose you don't return after 15 minutes. In that case, Vista assumes that you're really done for the time being. It cuts power, abandoning what it had memorized in RAM. Now your computer is using no power at all. The laptop battery isn't slowly running down; the desktop isn't contributing to global warming.

Fortunately, Windows still has the hard drive copy of your work environment. So now when you tap a key to wake the computer, you might have to wait 30 seconds or sonot as fast as two seconds, but certainly better than the five minutes it would take to start up, reopen all your programs, reposition your document windows, and so on.

So here's the bottom line: when you're done working for the momentor for the dayput your computer to Sleep instead of shutting it down. You save power, you save time, and you risk no data loss.

You can send a laptop to Sleep just by closing the lid. On any kind of computer, you can trigger Sleep by choosing Start .


Tip: Keyboard speed freaks should note that on a desktop or a laptop, you can trigger Sleep entirely from the keyboard by pressing , then right arrow, then Enter, in rapid succession.



Windows Vista. The Missing Manual
Windows Vista: The Missing Manual
ISBN: 0596528272
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 284
Authors: David Pogue

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