One of the biggest problems with Vista I found was the “shutdown button” would always put the computer into hibernate mode. Who would ever use hibernate mode anyway? I mean, come on, it’d be better to use sleep mode at that point. Jerks!

So anyway, here’s the quick fix:
Go into Power Options control panel
Under advanced settings find the “Power buttons and lid” option
Then look for “Start menu power button”
Now you’ll have different options to choose from. I personally picked Shut down.