Stay Awake - A new utility for the tech's out there

I wrote this little program the other night because I was fixing a customer's PC & like so many other times in the past, I started a virus scan, walked away for a bit & return to find that the computer had gone into sleep mode, which of course paused the scanning & wasted a bunch of my time. I find it aggravating to have to babysit a computer I'm working on & move the mouse every few minutes to keep the computer awake. Much of the time I'll just change the settings in the computer to prevent it from going into sleep or hibernate mode, but half the time I forget to restore the settings.

Stay Awake is a small, portable, single 800kb file you can run on your computer & carries out 1 simple task. It keeps the computer awake without having to babysit a computer or change system settings to keep the computer awake while carrying out time consuming tasks. When you are finished, simply close Stay Awake & your computer will again be able to fall into Screensaver, Sleep or Hibernate modes.

There is 1 more feature that Stay Awake sports. When ran, it also temporarily disables the Windows Update Service. The reason for this is the same. On occasion when I'm working on a very badly infested system I will run several full scans on a computer which can easily take many hours. So I will set it & leave it for the night to carry out it's long, time consuming tasks. But on occasion, Windows would have installed an update and automatically restarted the system on me during some point throughout the night. Which means I would have to start those long time consuming scans all over again. So by running Stay Awake you can also avoid this incredibly annoying event from happening again. And once you restart your PC, Windows will automatically restart the Windows Update Service by itself.

Anyway, I have found this simple utility to be so helpful for me, I figured I'd share it with the other tech's out there in hopes they will get as much use out of it as I have.

Download Link

Screenshot

 

Yes, this is a very useful utility. Here is something similar which might give you some additional ideas:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Launchers-Shutdown-Tools/Don-t-Sleep.shtml

Don't Sleep has a schedule option, but I don't know if it would block a Windows Update reboot.

 

Great thought and congratulations.

That is one thing that has always puzzled me about the Microsoft Windows Operating System, now I do not know where
nor remember where I read it on the Microsoft Web site, and I am not going to serach for it now after all this time.
Anyway, the puzzeling point is, Microsofts' documentation claimed that as long as there is 'Activity' on the System
Screen Savers and Hybernation will not be activated. Well it seems to me that scanning the System is producing
quite an lot of activity.....I am still scratching my head over this.


HKEY1952

 

That program has some interesting features. If I decide to build upon Stay Awake I may borrow some ideas from it.

 

Nor does it make sense to me. But apparently unless there is actual input from a peripheral like a keyboard or mouse, Windows sees the system as completely idle.

 

So, what you are saying is, that the Microsoft Windows Operating System only considers the System to be compelety
void of 'activity' only if there is no actual input to the System from an peripheral like an Keyboard or Mouse.

That is interesting, would you care to share how "Stay Awake" manages to keep the System 'Awake'?


HKEY1952

 

Stay Awake simply carries out a virtual keystroke every 30 seconds. By doing this, Windows thinks the system is being used by a person and therefore, resets it's counters for Screensaver, Sleep & Hibernate modes. As long as Stay Awake is running it will click the virtual key every 30 seconds indefinitely allowing your computer to never fall asleep.

 

Well I do not believe that Windows thinks the system is being used by any person, but I do believe that Windows is
recognizing input to the System from the Keyboard.....any way, thanks jminnie for your prompt answer and good luck!


HKEY1952

 

@ jminnie

Nice one

VT =

 

This is a keeper for my toolbox! Thank you very much, as soon as I get the chance might be able to drop a donation. Thank you for sharing!

 

@ all,

I'm just happy to share a useful tool that other's may get use out of. Thanks for giving my utility a try!

Jason

 

I created it because I'm a computer technician & will sometimes work on half a dozen to a dozen systems a day. Part of what I have to do to keep up with the constant flow of systems coming in is streamline how I work on those systems. Though it would only take a minute or two to change the settings on the systems I'm working on to prevent sleep or hibernate, tallying up the total amount of time I spend doing that throughout just a single day could potentially waste an hour's worth or time or more. But mostly, I created Stay Awake because my turnover rate is so fast from systems coming in to systems going out, I have several times in the past forgotten to go back & reset the sleep & hibernate modes back to default. Then I would inevitably be getting a phone call within a day or two from a customer asking why their computer wont go into sleep or hibernate mode. I'm not sure if you've ever tried explaining over the phone to somebody who is quite computer illiterate how to change their settings on a computer, but I can tell you I've spent over an hour on the phone in the past trying to walk them through step by step how to change settings which of course equates to a HUGE waste of time. And time really is money, the more time I waste on the phone with a customer, the less time I have to work on other systems.

Anyway, it's just a simple utility for people like me who are working on many systems a day. It is so much simpler & quicker to just double click on a utility & have it carry out it's task than to manually go through & do the same thing.

 

I agree with you peter.However I think the OP essentially is using this for customer service.If the hibernate is disabled and forgotten to enable after the task at hand for the client,they may think the techie broken something and may even some cause harsh feelings.

 

Exactly!

 

I appreciate this cause it has happened to me quite often that I forget to disable screensaver, standby, hibernate when working on someone else's computer. It's really irritaring.

 

I sometimes have to support customers over the phone and it's not just a huge time waster it's a nightmare. I had a full time job some years back doing support over the phone before the internet and "remote desktop" apps, and it could be excruciating. Today the most difficult part of support is just walking people through installing the remote access app - even that can be pretty frustrating. Having an organized way of working on systems that reduces the likelihood of follow-up phone calls is a must.

 

Thank you jminnie for writing this .

Similar: Caffeine.

 

Can't agree more! It certainly can be frustrating to walk somebody through what many of us find very simple, but others find incredibly difficult. I use remote support as much as possible, but it is aggravating at times to get them to simply go to my website & run the single file I need them to run in order to make a connection.

Another interesting program. I like the options it offers, but am not so sure if I'm personally a fan of command lines rather than GUI controls. But a nice program none the less!

 

There's another alternative, provided at an MSDN blog, with a GUI and source code is also provided...

It will minimize to tray, as well.

-http://blogs.msdn.com/b/delay/archive/2010/02/01/the-customer-is-always-right-updated-free-tool-and-source-code-to-prevent-a-machine-from-going-to-sleep.aspx

-edit-

The download link at the page will download a more up-to-date version, supporting Windows XP, as stated in this URL -http://blogs.msdn.com/b/delay/archive/2011/03/23/what-next-a-dos-version-free-tool-and-source-code-to-temporarily-prevent-a-computer-from-entering-sleep-mode-32-bit-and-64-bit-versions-now-support-windows-xp.aspx

 

Yet another similar & interesting program. I wonder if it will prevent Windows update auto-restarts?

 

I only found this tool yesterday, and didn't give a proper reading to the blogs to know more about it, but... You don't need to disable Windows Update service. All you got to do is modify Windows Update behavior either through Group Policy Editor or by modifying/adding the appropriate registry change.

I believe it would be of your clients interest to have automatic reboot turned off. Otherwise, the system can be rebooted while they're working on something important, and won't get the chance to save the work.

I prefer this way. Once they reboot on their own or shutdown and then boot the system next time, updates will apply, anyway.

 

I very much agree except, my wife for instance, never restarts or shuts down her laptop. She will just close the screen and when she is ready to use it again she will just wake it up. Unfortunately I think many people follow the same practice, and if so, will very rarely allow an update to complete. I know my wife never would if I didn't occasionally run through it & do maintenance & updates.
But I've also recently learned from sharing my utility with some friends & family that they are using it for other means than what I had designed it for. A friend for instance was downloading a 6.73GB game on his laptop & of course it kept going into sleep mode, so Stay Awake worked great for him. But this also showed me that there are many ways people may use Stay Awake & am almost wondering if I should change it so it won't automatically disable the Windows Update service... In the instance of my friend, there is no need for that. I am considering possibly adding a "Disable Windows Update Auto-Restart" button to the program so the user would have the benefit of choosing to disable that or not... I prefer to automatically disable the service myself, but I only use it when I'm repairing a system. Somebody else for example may use it for downloading large files, watching movies, etc.. & may possibly still want to run a Windows Update. If anybody would care to give me some insight on which way you feel I should go I would appreciate it. I think I'm now just more curious if people would use Stay Awake as a "Tech Tool" or for more "Casual use".

Thank you m00nbl00d & all else for your replies & interest!

 

Not in here... Electricity is just way too expensive to let the equipment on...

 

@ jminnie

Yeah, options are good Different strokes etc ...