How to change what happens to a laptop when you close the lid

All versions of Windows can control the way a laptop reacts to its lid being closed, but Windows XP’s options are the most limited. To explore them click Start followed by Control Panel and then select Performance and Maintenance. Now choose Power Options. If you are viewing Control Panel in Classic mode, just double-click the Power Options icon. On the Power Options Properties dialogue box, click the Advanced tab.

The options to change the laptop’s response to the lid being closed (or the power button being pressed) are below the Power buttons heading. In each case there is a dropdown menu showing the available settings. Open the dropdown menu below ‘When I close the lid of my portable computer’, for example, and you can choose between having the computer do nothing (ie, remaining switched on, ready to use) or placing itself into standby mode. Windows XP doesn’t provide a shutdown option here. Now click OK to confirm.

In Windows 7 and Vista, there are more options. Click Start, type ‘power options’ into the search bar and press Enter. This opens the Power Options dialogue box, ready to choose what Windows calls a ‘power plan’. Click one of the radio buttons to choose a preset plan here or click the Change plan settings link to make changes to the selected plan. Alternatively, to manage the laptop lid’s behaviour, click the ‘Choose what closing the lid does’ from the actions list on the left-hand side – this opens the System Settings dialogue box.

From here, it’s possible to control the function of the computer’s power button, the sleep button and (in the case of laptops) the lid. Each has a dropdown menu bearing several options. Click to open the dropdown menu alongside ‘When I close the lid’ and below ‘On battery’. The available options include Do nothing, Sleep, Hibernate and Shut down. These options may vary and depend on the computer’s hardware. Some laptops don’t support the Sleep option, for example. The best choice for saving battery power is Shut down, but bear in mind that powering back up may take a while.

The same options are available for the laptop when it’s powered (the dropdown menus below the ‘Plugged in’ heading). As before, Shut down is the most energy-saving option but it’s not best for quickly returning to work – and probably overkill when the computer remains plugged in. Sleep, if available, will provide the quickest return to Windows when the laptop’s lid is opened, as all data in memory is retained. However, you should remember that Sleep uses more energy than the Hibernate option, where data is stored on the hard disk (allowing the memory and other hardware to be powered down).

If you want, security can be applied to restrict access to the laptop when the lid is opened. If this is necessary, click ‘Change settings that are currently unavailable’ and select the ‘Require a password (recommended)’ radio button. Now, if Sleep mode is initiated by the laptop’s lid being closed, the password will be requested the next time it is opened. If ‘Don’t require a password’ is selected, the laptop will return to work from where it left off when the lid was closed. Click Save changes when you are finished.