i press play/pause for 3 seconds and screen goes dark. but when i move the pad, the menu comes back up. is it how this works? or will it ever completely shut off?

the zune device doesnt really turn off, it goes to deep sleep.

There are two ways to power Zune down.

Turn Off
This puts the device into a power saving state. The Zune device turns itself off after 10 minutes of inactivity.

·To turn Zune off, press and hold the play/pause button for 3 seconds.
·to turn Zune back on, press and hold the play/pause button for 3 seconds.
Deep Sleep
This manually puts the device into its most conservative power-saving state. The device will automatically enter deep sleep after about 24 hours of inactivity.

To put Zune into deep sleep:

1.Set the hold switch to unlocked.

2.Press and hold the back button while pressing down on the Zune pad (or control pad).
 

The device is as off as any piece of electronics is that is waiting and watching for an event that signals it should wake back up.

It sounds like you want to avoid accidentally turning the device on. Just press play\pause for 3 seconds and then flip the hold switch to locked. The device will take care of the rest. Don't make it complicated.

When you connect to power the device will turn back on to charge.

To ARCLOUIS

Thank you so much for the very clear explaination of what is going on with my Zune. I never would have figured that out by myself.

I hate to tell you how long it has taken me to figure out how to get photos into the collection, on to the device after that was a piece of cake

Thanks again.  Hope your are availabile if I have another question