Kobi Pinhasov

When I’ve got a long running application (like installation app) on my ThinkPad X61 I usually close the lid and go out to do something else. A friend of mine noticed me doing this and was surprised that closing lid did not cause Windows to go to the sleep mode. I told him that this is something that can be configured by user and is actually a very nice feature in Windows.

Follow the following steps to configure this on your laptop:

Windows 7

• Open the Control Panel
• Navigate to the Hardware and Sound category
• Click on the Power Options item
• On the left side of the window click on the menu item named Choose what closing the   lid does

or just click on the Start button and type the word lid and the search results will contain item named Choose what closing the lid does 

You will be presented with the following options:

You can control the functionality of various buttons (power and sleep) and the lid here depending whether your laptop is plugged in to the power source or it is running on battery.

I personally set it the way that when my laptop is plugged in and I close the lid it should continue working (Do nothing option). This is very useful especially when you connect your laptop to external projector/monitor (I also have wireless keyboard and mouse connected to it).

 

The same can be accomplished in Windows XP and also Windows Vista. In Windows XP the setting window is different but you can do it in Power Options item in the Control Panel.

Hope this was helpful for you.