How to add a “sleep” button to a Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Keyboard

This post tells you how to remap a the “pause” key to “sleep” if your keyboard does not have a “sleep” key. This is really useful because there is no easy keyboard shortcut in Windows 11 to send your computer to sleep.

  1. Install PSTools
  2. Install Autohotkeys
  3. create a this file
#sleep-on-pause.ahk
#Requires AutoHotkey v2.0
Pause:: 
{
   Run "C:{path to to psshutdown here}\psshutdown.exe -d -t 0"
}

  1. Put it in your startup folder
  2. Windows + R > shell:startup

When you reboot the “Pause” key will now run PSTools and send your laptop to sleep.

Testing tip – give things time to happen

When testing allow at least 60s after logging in before pressing the Paus” button. This is because experiment shows that start-up scripts run after all the other Windows login activities. After you press the Pause button the computer screen will go black after a couple of seconds but it is not asleep yet. Wait at least 60s before trying to wake your computer.

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