Hi Frank,
The first one is sleep mode, the others are the shutdown/restart options.
Some have issues with sleep because either they are experiencing software
conflicts or have drivers installed that don't support this mode. The latter
occurs most often on older systems that were upgraded from XP and may not
have full driver sets available.
As to which one is right to use, I prefer sleep as when you power on you
start where you left off (much like XP's hibernate but much faster to
reload). Use what works for you.
--
Best of Luck,
Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help -
www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts
http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com
"Frank" <> wrote in message
news:1094D7D0-DFDA-45B7-8B0E-...
>I am somewhat new to Windows Vista. What is the proper way to "Shut down"
>my
> laptop?? When I click the Winows Ball on the bottom left of my screen
> (used
> to be "start"), I see a button that looks like a power button, but a
> little
> further to the right, I see an arrow that has the normal shot down and
> restart commands that I'm used to. Which is the right one? I heard that
> the
> one that looks like a power button has had system issues.