Sleeping Employees Will Have Sleeping Vista Desktops
Windows Vista is configured to reliably put your desktop to sleep during periods of inactivity. Now, besides quickly minimizing screens showing women that aren't dressed, or Fark when your boss walks by, you'll have to worry about the screen being blank while you're sleeping at your desk, too:
With Windows Vista, Microsoft plans to put machines to sleep after an hour of inactivity. While businesses and consumers can change that setting, the software maker said they would be smart to let their computers nod off.
Microsoft estimates that allowing a PC to go to sleep during off hours, as compared with leaving it on all the time, saves anywhere from $55 (£29.55) a year to $70 (£37.60) annually, depending on the type of monitor.
"This is energy [consumed] when you are not even using the PC," said Dean DeWhitt, a director in the Windows kernel team at Microsoft. "It truly is a waste."
Unlike XP, Vista won't allow other programs to veto sleep commands form the OS. Because of the market share they command, saving energy with a narcoleptic Vista OS is bound to have an enormous cumulative benefit in power savings. But be warned: You're going to have to do something every once in a while at work.
