As an avid user of the Sleep function on my laptop, I've been more than irritated with Vista's habit of changing the Sleep button into an "Install Updates and Shut Down" button whenever there are updates from Windows Update.

After the last time I accidentally clicked this stupid button when I just wanted to enter sleep mode, I decided to look for a solution.

Manual Registry Hack

If you'd like to manually create this hack, you can open up regedit.exe using the start menu search box and then browse down to the following key, creating the key if it doesn't exist.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU

Add a 32-bit DWORD value called NoAUAsDefaultShutdownOption with a value of 1. No reboot should be necessary.

Now our Sleep button should be back to the way it was, but if you wanted to use the Install Updates and Shut Down option, it's still available via the shutdown menu:

Download Registry Hack

Unzip the file and double-click on the StopHijackingMySleepButton.reg file to activate the registry hack. You shouldn't have to restart anything, as the changes will happen immediately. There's also a registry file to uninstall the hack.

I believe there is a similar option for XP, but I'm guessing the key is located in a different place.

Download StopHijackingMySleepButton Registry Hack