The default behaviour of the start menu power button is to shutdown the system. This is generally fine, since Windows will try and warn you if you have applcations with unsaved data. But web applications (including this forum) are less obliging at sticking around. It would be extremely simple to solve this issue by having an optional timeout on shutdown, and there's no obvious reason why MS hasn't done this. In any case, it's easy to change the behaviour of the power button, and I've set mine to hibernate. This is fine, except that when there are updates to install, Windows 7 unilaterally reverts this button to Shutdown. The text of the button changes of course, but I'm now used to typing Win -> Enter, practically without looking. This behaviour is incredibly obnoxious. Today's scenario: I've explained something to a customer for the forty-seventh time, it's late and I want to go home, I need to pick up my kids from childcare. I'm in a rush, so with one hand I type Win -> Enter and Windows 7 makes me a present of "installing 7 updates, don't unplug or switch off now". As usual there are few clues as to how long this process will take. Five minutes in, and I'm fidgeting. After 10 I'm angry. Do I phone the nursery? Do I try and get a friend to pick up the children? Do I put the laptop to sleep, knowing that it will be a real pain to reinstall from a backup image if something goes wrong before I travel tomorrow? After 15 minutes, slightlly mad and seized once again by the conviction that there is in Redmond a tribe that lives and breathes contempt for users, I put the thing to sleep and go. It still works. The truly galling thing about this behaviour is that it would be so easy to remedy. Instead of surreptitiously reverting to shutdown, just say 'there are updates: would you like to install them or continue with hibernation?' That would be, functional, informative and polite - and good for my blood pressure.