Windows 7 and Sleep Mode

I wonder if anyone else has been having the issue I have with Windows 7 and sleep mode. I have it set up to where it goes into sleep mode after one hour if there is no activity. And it does do that. The problem I'm having though is that it only seems to recognize user activity and doesn't care if the system is in the process of doing anything; I have had Windows sleep in the middle of creating a DVD with ConvertXtoDVD and while creating a large encrypted volume. Is there any way to change that behavior?

 

Actually Windows does provide a way for programs to tell it that's it's needs the monitor and/or system to stay active (which in turn suppresses the screensaver and/or sleep mode), but it's up to the program to make use of it. If no programs have notified Windows that the system needs to stay active, it will go ahead and put it to sleep if the system's been idle long enough.

The best long term solution would probably be to contact the author(s) of the programs in question and request an option to suppress sleep/standby while it's doing it's work.

I did write a quick program in C# that can suppress sleep while it's open. It's pretty basic since I didn't spent much time on it (< 5 minutes) but as far as I can tell it works. I also included the source code in case anyone's interested. Here ya go: http://www.mediafire.com/file/zyyg1jtmhwz/SuppressIdle.zip