Here's a little bit of information on power settings on Vista, things like how to change what your computer does when you close the lid, what that red button on the Start menu does, etc.
Go to Control Panel, Power Options (in Classic View), or click on "Change battery settings" under Mobile PC.
On the selected "power plan", click on "Change plan settings".
Right here you can change after how much time the computer turns off the display or puts the computer to sleep automatically.
If you click on "Change advanced power settings", you get a different window with many more options. Click on the "+" symbol by "Power buttons and lid" and a submenu appears. For each option you may want to change (Lid close action, Power button action, Sleep button action, Start menu power button), click on the corresponding "+" symbol; more info shows. You can change the actions depending if you're on battery or plugged in, by clicking on the blue text and selecting your choice from the drop-down list. You might have there "Do nothing", "Sleep", "Shut down" (and depending on your configuration, also "Hibernate").
Click on OK to save your changes and you're done.
Notice that the "Start menu power button" is the red button on the Start menu I mentioned.
If you have your computer set to "Sleep" and the lid is closed, opening the lid should bring it back on.
A little note on Hibernation: if you cannot find that option on your list, it might be disabled. If you really want to use Hibernation instead of Sleep, I can give more details on how to re-activate it.
malu
