You have referred to the Stand by, shut down and restart buttons.
I am not sure whether you are referring to buttons on the
hardware of your laptop, or whether you are referring to the
options you see, when you click on Start / Turn off computer (at
the bottom LH corner of the Win XP screen).
However, the first thing to do is to check that the Power Options
have been configured correctly on your laptop.
Open Control Panel and click on Power Options. Then, select the
Hibernation tab. Upon the assumption that your laptop (and its
BIOS) supports Hibernation (and you have sufficient disk
capacity), you should enable this option.
Next, select the Power Schemes tab - and check that your computer
is configured as a Portable/Laptop - and not for any other
purpose.
I have found that the following timings are ideal for my HP
laptop, but you can vary them to meet your personal preferences.
Turn off monitor : 20 minutes plugged in, 10 minutes on batteries
Turn off hard disks: 15 minutes plugged in, 15 minutes on
batteries
System standby: 30 minutes plugged in, 20 minutes on batteries
Hibernation: 45 minutes plugged in, 25 minutes on batteries
Then, select the Advanced tab - and configure the options for
your particular laptop. I have configured mine as:
Power button: Shut down
Close lid: Hibernate
Sleep Button: Standby
If that doesn't help , a Google search led me to
www.computing.net/answers/windows-xp/no-standby-option-after-reinstal/143038.html
- which may point you in the right direction.
