CurrentControlSet\Control\Power is missing

Question

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power is missing is Registry Editor. How do I manage what opeing the lid does, if I cannot access the controls

Answer 1

Hi! Windows Lid behaviour is for waking/turning on the display from sleep or standby, not powering on from a full shutdown. On many laptops, true “power on when lid opens” is controlled by the BIOS/UEFI or the manufacturer utility, not by Windows. That is why some systems still ignore the Windows setting or need a firmware option such as Power On Lid Open, Flip to Boot, or similar.

Answer 2

This does not answer my question - how to I tell the computer to turn on when I open the lid, if there are o controls to put this into place?

Answer 3

In Windows 11, lid behavior is not managed directly by editing HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power in the registry. The supported ways to control what opening or closing the lid does are through power plans and related policy settings.

To manage lid close behavior via power settings (per power plan):

1. Use the Lid switch close action power setting, which controls what happens when the lid is closed.
2. This setting has the following values:
   • 0 – Do Nothing
   • 1 – Sleep
   • 2 – Hibernate
   • 3 – Shut Down
3. Internally, this setting is identified by the GUID 5ca83367-6e45-459f-a27b-476b1d01c936 and the PowerCfg alias LIDACTION.

This setting applies to Windows Vista and later, including Windows 11.

To manage lid open behavior (what happens when the lid is opened):

1. Use the Lid open wake action power setting.
2. This setting has the following values:
   • 0 – Do Nothing (no action when the lid is opened)
   • 1 – Turn on the display (OS turns on the display when the lid is opened)
3. Internally, this setting is identified by the GUID 99ff10e7-23b1-4c07-a9d1-5c3206d741b4 and the PowerCfg alias LIDOPENWAKE.
4. It is available in Windows 10, version 1607 and later versions of Windows, which includes Windows 11.

Both of these are “hidden” power settings, meaning they may not appear in the standard Control Panel UI, but they are still configurable via provisioning, powercfg, or management policies.

If Group Policy or MDM is used (for example, on managed or Pro/Enterprise systems), lid close behavior when plugged in can also be controlled via the SelectLidCloseActionPluggedIn policy:

• Policy path: ./Device/Vendor/MSFT/Policy/Config/Power/SelectLidCloseActionPluggedIn
• Allowed values:
  • 0 – Take no action
  • 1 (default) – Sleep
  • 2 – Hibernate
  • 3 – Shut down
• This maps to the Group Policy setting “Select the lid switch action (plugged in)” under:
  • Computer Configuration → System → Power Management → Button Settings

These mechanisms allow control of lid behavior without relying on the presence of a specific Control\Power registry branch in CurrentControlSet.

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References:

• Lid switch close action
• Lid open wake action
• Policy CSP - Power
• Power button and lid settings overview