Is there a tiny app for Windows XP that will let me put my PC monitor on standby with just one click?

August 8, 2004 6:49 PM

Is there a shortcut or a teeny tiny lil app for Windows XP, that will let me put my PC monitor on standby with just one click. I don't want to turn the power off, just put it on standby.
posted by riffola to computers & internet (17 comments total)

Do you want to put just the monitor into standby, or the whole PC?
posted by LairBob at 6:56 PM on August 8, 2004

(Because if you want to put the CPU/OS into standby, there's got to be a "Windows" key combo that does that--there's a whole set of commands that use the "Windows" key as if it were "Shift" or "Ctrl". I forget what the "standby" command is offhand, but as an example, I know that "Windows-L" will send straight to the "quick login" screen.)
posted by LairBob at 6:59 PM on August 8, 2004

Just the monitor. The thing is I recently found out that I can do this using my phone with bluetooth but I can't figure out how to do it without my phone and Float Mobile Agent.
posted by riffola at 7:06 PM on August 8, 2004

That's hilarious.
posted by LairBob at 7:08 PM on August 8, 2004

Oh, hey--look at this little utility [Wizmo]. Looks like the "monoff" switch is exactly what you're looking for (as long as you've got an APM-compliant monitor, which I'm sure you'd need no matter what, to do what you want).
posted by LairBob at 7:14 PM on August 8, 2004

Thanks for the help LairBob!

Also if anyone knows a way to just do it using a command line/shortcut, that's even better, thanks!
posted by riffola at 7:35 PM on August 8, 2004

No problem.

if anyone knows a way to just do it using a command line/shortcut...

Isn't that exactly the way Wizmo is supposed to run? I haven't tried it myself, but it looks like the way you drive it is by setting up a shortcut with command-line parameters .
posted by LairBob at 7:41 PM on August 8, 2004

LairBob, I meant without a program, a shell shortcut, like the one they have to shutdown windows using shell32.exe (I think)
posted by riffola at 7:57 PM on August 8, 2004

Oh, sure. Obviously don't know one myself, but there's clearly some kind of API to do it in Windows, since this little app tapped into it.

If you look at the rest of that site the app's on, though, Gibson's a sharp guy, who knows the Windows API pretty well (and writes all his apps directly in assembly). He wrote that utility to do exactly what you want, so if he looked into how Windows worked and still felt compelled to write this thing, then it's a fair bet it was left out of the OS itself.
posted by LairBob at 8:10 PM on August 8, 2004

Why just the monitor? If you want to be able to quickly hide the screen you could put a shortcut on your desktop to the blank screensaver. That is two clicks to a blank screen that looks off. Put the shortcut on the toolbar and it is a single click.
posted by caddis at 8:19 PM on August 8, 2004

Here's a place to start looking:

MS Windows ACPI / Power Management - Architecture and Driver Support
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 9:21 PM on August 8, 2004

Okay. Here's a small freeware app, executable is only 168K, that is quite powerful and has command-line functionality. It'd be easy to set up a quicklaunch shortcut to power down the monitor, or a right-click context menu option, or whatever.

Poweroff 3.0
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 9:42 PM on August 8, 2004

Thanks for the links.

I just wanna turn off the monitor so as to not waste power, I usually know when I'm going to be away from my PC, so it seems like a waste to have the monitor on for 15 odd minutes before it goes to standby mode, also setting that time lower means half through reading the latest MeTa thread that's caught our fancy, the standby mode kicks in.
posted by riffola at 9:59 PM on August 8, 2004

How can I standby or hibernate Windows 2000 or Windows XP from the command line?
posted by Danelope at 11:03 PM on August 8, 2004

Caveat: Haven't tested this because telling my machine to sleep freezes it solid.
posted by Danelope at 11:04 PM on August 8, 2004

Thanks, but I don't want the computer to be on standby, just the monitor. Standby mode shuts off the internet connection, so I can't leave the machine on and epect a download to be finished by the time I get back.
posted by riffola at 6:00 AM on August 9, 2004

I can relate riffola. When one of my computers goes into standby mode it takes out the network connection and it seems to always requiring rebooting to get it back. To make matters worse, this machine is used almost exclusively to access the Internet. I took the easy out and set the power management functions to put the monitor into standby after 15 minutes and never let the whole computer enter standby. Now, I think I might look into the JSI tip posted by danelope. That is an information packed site, thanks danelope.
posted by caddis at 8:25 AM on August 9, 2004