I WANT TO gray-out the Stand By button!

[rbenton]

Contrary to all the other posts I see where someone wants to restore a grayed-out Stand By button in Windows XP, I want the opposite, so the default will be the Turn Off button.

What's frustrating is that, before I installed a new hard drive, I had somehow gotten my computer to work that way. And had done the same thing to my wife's laptop. All running XP Home SP2. I learned how from someone on-line a while back, but can't find it anywhere.

I've tried all the options in Control Panel/Power Options, to no avail. Plus, they're exactly as they were before on this computer, and are on the laptop.

Help?

[tmathews]

If your BIOS has a setting like "ACPI-aware operating system" that's enabled, try disabling it. Not sure if XP will detect the change automatically -- you may have to go into Device Manager -> System devices and Scan for Hardware changes and/or delete the ACPI items.

To clarify, are you trying to eliminate Standby as an option or do you just want to make Turn Off the default? Why? This may help us come up with more alternatives for you.

[rbenton]

Thanks for your response, T.

You're right, my objective is really to be able to simply hit Enter when the three-button box appears, and have the computer turn off. As I said, I had somehow grayed-out the Stand By button when my previous hard drive was installed, and also did it on my wife's laptop, with the result being that the Turn Off button became the default. In fact, when I changed the master/slave jumpers to make my original hard drive the boot drive, the Stand By button was once again grayed out!

The only difference is that, on the original, I had upgraded to XP from 98 SE, whereas I did a full clean install, using the identical disk, on the new drive. Based on these data, I don't think it's BIOS-related--it's got to be (in my mind) something buried somewhere in the registry. As I said, I exported all three (the laptop, the old hard drive, and the new one) and tried comparing them to one another. Obviously, though, finding the culprit is a daunting challenge!

[tmathews]

No definitive answer but something to try. The Microsoft KnowledgeBase article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/188134/en-us lists failure to come out of Standby as a cause for it being grayed out. So how about causing this to happen?

Back up the registry (and anything critical while you're at it), then put the machine into Standby. Once it's there, pull the plug (I wouldn't try this with a laptop) and let it sit a minute or two to lose its memory. When you power it back up, XP should remember it had done a Standby and didn't recover. Eventually you should get a message asking if you want to keep the machine from going to Standby in the future. Answer yes, and Standby should be grayed out. Now compare the current registry with the backup and you should be able to extract the keys needed to do this at will.

Anyone else have a better idea?

[rbenton]

Well, T, it was a a good idea, but, unfortunately, didn't do it. I've tried six or seven times, but no luck. Still seems like it has to be something I changed, 'cause, as I think about it, the laptop came from Dell with XP Home already on it, and I was able to change it! I'll keep trying--meanwhile, anyone else?

[rbenton]

Well, T, I happened upon one of the many threads about how to restore a grayed-out Stand By button, and it made reference to a particular value under a particular key, that had been present in my original hard drive, but was missing in the new one. So I added it, as well as modifying the other value already there, to mirror my original drive, and voila! ze Stand By button, she is grayed out. Tres magnifique!

The key is HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ACPI\Parameters. The value I had in the registry for my original drive was called "Attributes", and had a DWord value of 0 x 70 (hex). Once I added that value, it did the trick! So, for all those out there with the grayed out button who want to get it back, that may be the key in the registry to play with!

Thanks for your input, T--you kept me looking!