OK, I checked mine. The IR AIM setting should not affect the laser aim (to be honest I'm not sure what that does!). The laser should work regardless when you put the main switch to AIM.
I too put my IR AIM in settings to "on", tried the laser and it worked. And when I went back, mine was also back to "off" again.
The manual says if you want to use IR to aim, but InfraRed isNOT the laser beam, it's actually part of the motion sensor. I'm not sure what they mean by that.

Anyway it does'nt matter what mode you're in, because the camera is actually off. If the laser is not coming on when in the aim position, I think something is wrong with your cam.
You are looking in the right spot, right? It's kind of hard to see when bright out. Did you put your hand right in front of the laser?