Confused about the WIRELESS switch (SZ440N)

I have found that, when I move the WIRELESS switch to OFF, the WLAN and Bluetooth radios are merely disabled, as in still powered but not able to connect to anything, versus turned off, as in no power. To wit, when I move the switch to OFF, the WLAN and B/T LEDs extinguish, but the devices are still enabled in Device Manager, and the Wireless Switch Utility still shows check marks next to them and has a colored (green for WLAN and/or blue for Bluetooth) icon in the Notification Area.

The only way to truly power them off seems to be to clear their check marks in the Wireless Switch Utility, regardless of the position of the switch: when I do this, not only do the LEDs extinguish, but then — and only then — do they show up as disabled in Device Manager (which I take to mean that power to them has been removed).

I think this is a monumental WTF: what's the point of having the switch if all it does is disable the wireless radios and leave them powered on, sapping precious battery power? I mean, the whole point of wanting to turn them off is to save power, not to just disable them. Why would you want them disabled but powered on? It also creates a condition which is a logical fallacy: the switch can be in the ON position but the radios are actually OFF (due to not being checked in the utility), or vice-versa.

Can anyone verify or refute my findings?

 

Yes, that's my problem too. When the switch is set to OFF, the device is still available in the device manager - under XP the device was disabled! Does anybody know the answer how to realize this?

 

I think this might have to do with bad Vista drivers. I didn't realize this until i read your post, but this happens to me as well.

When I had XP on my SZ320 when flip the switch to off it did kill it in the device manager...