Creating windows shortcut for "Stand by"

If you are a laptop user and prefer to go "Stand by" instead of "Hibernate" or "Log Off" to save time, the quickest way to do is to use the keyboard shortcuts on the laptop keyboard (for my Dell laptop its Fn+Esc) which I use very often. However if you use external keyboard (with dock station) you are deprived of the direct laptop keyboard access and hence the only way I figure out so far is to go through Start->Shut Down and then select "Stand by" option there which I found quite irritating because of the no of clicks.

You can create a desktop shortcut and even assign a keyboard shortcut to achieve the same. Here is what you need to do:

- Right click on the desktop and click on New->Shortcut

- In the "Create Shortcut" dialog, type the following and click Next:

%windir%\System32\rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState

- Give a name to this shortcut (ex StandBy) and click Finish.

 You will see a new shortcut on the desktop which  you can double click to get you laptop/system in Stand by mode. If you want to assign some keyboard shortcut, right click on the shortcut and select Property. In the "Shortcut key" text box, select the shortcut that you want to be used for ex. Ctrl + Shift + Atl + S.

Comments

• Anonymous
  May 07, 2008
  Um, SetSuspendState was not designed to be called from rundll32. You are passing it random parameters and corrupting the stack.

• Anonymous
  May 07, 2008
  Interesting.. But I see this is working perfectly for me. Can you tell me some scenario where it can fail??

• Anonymous
  November 01, 2008
  works fine for me BUT it sends my computer in hibernate instead of standby.

• Anonymous
  November 01, 2008
  You need to enable the Stand By mode instead of Hibernate. Both of them cannot work at same time.

• Anonymous
  January 09, 2009
  awesome dude. works great. thanks.

• Anonymous
  January 09, 2009
  Very cool and handy short cut. It works for me properly on XP Pro, but it sends the computer in Hibernate. How to change it to Stand By mode? Thanks in advance, Vinod

• Anonymous
  May 08, 2009
  GREATE SHORT CUT DUDE , WAS LOOKING FOR IT, WORKS FOR MY XP SP2, I JUST UNCHECKED HIBERNATE AND IT WORKS PERFECT AS STAND BY , THANKS

• Anonymous
  August 29, 2010
  Neeraj, Thank you for this great shortcut! For those having the computer go into hibernation (at least in XP), what Neeraj says is, go into Power settings under Control Panel and disable the Hibernation option. Start-Settings-Control Panel-Power Options-Hibernate (then disable the Hibernate Mode)-Apply.

• Anonymous
  September 08, 2010
  Nice article dude. thanks...

• Anonymous
  July 19, 2011
  For first reply (Raymond Chen) support.microsoft.com/.../555569

• Anonymous
  July 13, 2012
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  November 09, 2012
  awesome - ty

• Anonymous
  February 03, 2014
  Excellent , works perfect , thanks !!!!