As I’ve mentioned before, putting workstations into a low power standby mode when not in use is a great way to save money. Unfortunately, standby doesn’t always work like it should. Many sysadmins have struggled with applications, settings, and even system drivers that prevent standby from working reliably, or working at all.

There were many scenarios in past versions of Windows where workstations configured to enter standby after a certain period of idle time would refuse to do so, often without many clues as to why. This behavior is commonly (and cleverly) referred to as PC insomnia. While Windows 7 computers can still suffer from insomnia, the latest Windows OS now includes new tools and settings to troubleshoot and resolve it.  There are a variety of things that may prevent a computer from properly entering standby when idle. Common reasons include hardware driver issues, service issues, and open file shares. Windows XP did not include any tools that could help pinpoint what was keeping the system awake, which often made finding the culprit a guessing game. Thankfully, the command line utility POWERCFG.EXE was updated in Windows 7 to include two new options that assist with tracking down insomnia issues.

If you haven’t already, you should check out my previous article about power management in Windows 7 in order to learn about power profiles and POWERCFG.EXE commands.

POWERCFG -REQUESTS

One way to troubleshoot Windows 7 insomnia issues, is the POWERCFG.EXE -REQUESTS command. This command can be used to display a list of applications and drivers that have made requests to prevent the computer from entering standby.

In the example above, there are actually two Windows components that are preventing the system from entering standby. The first issue is that Windows wants to keep this particular computer awake because a remote host is connected to a share on the computer . If this computer was acting as a network file server, that would probably be a good thing. But it’s not, so we either need to prevent the computer from sharing files at all, or allow it to enter standby regardless of whether a remote host is connected to a file share. The other issue is that Windows wants to keep this computer awake because it’s connected to a remote file share. While there are probably cases where this behavior is desired, I want Windows to enter standby regardless of whether or not the computer is connected to a remote network share. Otherwise, most workstations would never enter standby! Both of these issues can normally resolved by changing a few hidden power options, which is covered later in this article.

POWERCFG -ENERGY

In a some cases, it may also be useful run POWERCFG.EXE -ENERGY. This command performs a more thorough investigation  in order find potential power management issues, such as those that may be preventing standby. When POWERCFG -ENERGY is run, it detects common issues by monitoring the system for a period of time and capturing system settings and events that may be preventing Windows power management from working properly. When done, the results are written to a HTML file.

By default, POWERCFG.EXE -ENERGY analyzes the system for 60 seconds. However,  the analysis duration can be be set to a larger period of time to detect more sporadic events that are preventing standby. To perform an analysis for 10 minutes, run POWERCFG -ENERGY -DURATION 600. When finished, the results are written to energy-report.html,  or the filename specified with -OUTPUT <FILENAME>.

While this report is more thorough that POWERCFG -REQUESTS, it may include items that aren’t necessarily related to issues with standby. For example, the report above shows the error USB Suspend:USB Device not Entering Suspend for several USB devices on this computer. While this may affect the computer’s power efficiency at some level,  it’s not the reason that this computer was entering standby. In this case, the standby was being blocked by the  System Required Request initiated by the driver \FileSystem\srvnet. This is related to the Windows network shares, and indicated to me that that standby was  being blocked because a remote host was trying to connect to a share on the client computer. I wasn’t able to see this when running POWERCFG -REQUESTS alone.

Manually Checking Services

If neither of the tools mentioned above help pinpointthe cause of insomnia, you may want to try manually verifying that Windows Services aren’t preventing standby. This troubleshooting method is simple, but a bit tedious:

1. First, go to Start > Control Panel > Power Options and configure the current power profile so that the system enters standby after 1 minute.
2. Go to Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services. Sort the services by the status column.
3. One by one, stop services that are running. Each time you stop a service, let the computer idle for at least 2 minutes to see if it enters standby. Continue doing this until the computer enters standby. It’s probably best to begin with non-Windows services.
4. If/when the computer finally enters standby after you’ve stopped a service, make note of that service. Restart the computer so that all services are running again. Stop that particular service again and wait for the computer to idle into standby.
5. If the computer idles to standby, you have found the service that is preventing system standby.

What services could be causing insomnia? Some anti-virus applications have been known to prevent the system from entering standby for various reasons. Older or poorly-written services may also be the cause of PC insomnia.

Treating Insomnia

Windows 7 includes several power settings that may be useful for resolving PC insomnia. Interestingly, some of them are hidden and must be enabled in the system registry. Below are some common settings and methods for treating insomnia.

Allow Standby with Remote Opens

By default, Windows 7 will attempt to prevent system standby when connected to a  a remote share or file. Presumably, this is to prevent any ongoing file transfers over the network from failing due to the system unexpectedly entering standby. But there are many cases where the system is connected to a remote share and it is okay to enter standby. Windows 7 includes a setting to allow the computer to enter standby, but it may be missing from the advanced power options dialog box. This .reg file will unhide the “Allow sleep with remote opens” option AND set it to Yes for three default power profiles (Balanced, High Performance, and Power Saver) in Windows 7:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\238C9FA8-0AAD-41ED-83F4-97BE242C8F20\d4c1d4c8-d5cc-43d3-b83e-fc51215cb04d]
"Attributes"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\238C9FA8-0AAD-41ED-83F4-97BE242C8F20\d4c1d4c8-d5cc-43d3-b83e-fc51215cb04d\DefaultPowerSchemeValues\381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e]
"ACSettingIndex"=dword:00000001
"DCSettingIndex"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\238C9FA8-0AAD-41ED-83F4-97BE242C8F20\d4c1d4c8-d5cc-43d3-b83e-fc51215cb04d\DefaultPowerSchemeValues\8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c]
"ACSettingIndex"=dword:00000001
"DCSettingIndex"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\238C9FA8-0AAD-41ED-83F4-97BE242C8F20\d4c1d4c8-d5cc-43d3-b83e-fc51215cb04d\DefaultPowerSchemeValues\a1841308-3541-4fab-bc81-f71556f20b4a]
"ACSettingIndex"=dword:00000001
"DCSettingIndex"=dword:00000001

Although the registry entries above will configure the three default power profiles, it won’t apply the settings to custom power profiles. To do that, you’ll need to find the Power Scheme GUID of the power profile you created by using POWERCFG.EXE /LIST and then run these commands:

POWERCFG.EXE /SETACVALUEINDEX <POWER SCHEME GUID> 238c9fa8-0aad-41ed-83f4-97be242c8f20 d4c1d4c8-d5cc-43d3-b83e-fc51215cb04d 1
POWERCFG.EXE /SETDCVALUEINDEX <POWER SCHEME GUID> 238c9fa8-0aad-41ed-83f4-97be242c8f20 d4c1d4c8-d5cc-43d3-b83e-fc51215cb04d 1

Allow Standby when Sharing Media

If the system is configured with file or media sharing enabled, Windows 7 may prevent the system from entering standby while users are connected to files or shares hosted on the system in order to prevent file transfers from being interrupted. Sometimes, media, file, and printer sharing may be enabled on the workstation without the user or the sysadmin knowing it. To make matters worse, there are some network applications installed that tend to scan network shares at regular intervals, which may prevent standby.

This behavior can be disabled by setting  “When sharing media” to “Allow Computer to Sleep” within the advanced settings of a power profile. The setting shouldn’t be hidden by default. To apply this setting to a custom Windows 7 power profile, these commands can be used:

POWERCFG.EXE /SETACVALUEINDEX <POWER SCHEME GUID> 9596fb26-9850-41fd-ac3e-f7c3c00afd4b 03680956-93bc-4294-bba6-4e0f09bb717f 0
POWERCFG.EXE /SETDCVALUEINDEX <POWER SCHEME GUID> 9596fb26-9850-41fd-ac3e-f7c3c00afd4b 03680956-93bc-4294-bba6-4e0f09bb717f 0

Add Power Request Override

While applications can request that Windows to keep the system awake, that doesn’t mean that the OS should always listen. Applications make power requests like this for several reasons. For example, Windows Update may make a request keep to computer awake while updates are being installed or a reboot is pending. It’s actually very easy to implement a power request that blocks standby, which means it could be abused by a service or process that thinks it knows what’s good for it. If the results from POWERCFG -REQUESTS or POWERCONFIG -ENERGY show that a particular service or process is making a lot of unnecessary power requests, there is a way in Windows 7 to ignore those requests. To learn more about overriding a power requests, browse to the “Overriding a Power Request” section of this Microsoft paper.

Don’t Allow System Required Policy

If you’ve tried everything but still can’t get that  insomniac system to enter standby when idle, there is one last setting that you can use in a last ditch attempt.

However,the “Allow System Required Policy” power setting may also cause Windows to ignore valid requests to keep the computer awake. Therefore, this setting should only be used if nothing else works and you’ve tried using a Power Request Override to ignore specific drivers, processes, and services. This registry entry will unhide the setting:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\238C9FA8-0AAD-41ED-83F4-97BE242C8F20\A4B195F5-8225-47D8-8012-9D41369786E2]
"Attributes"=dword:00000000

To disable power request overrides for a power profile, these commands can be used:

POWERCFG.EXE /SETACVALUEINDEX <POWER SCHEME GUID> 238C9FA8-0AAD-41ED-83F4-97BE242C8F20 A4B195F5-8225-47D8-8012-9D41369786E2 0
POWERCFG.EXE /SETDCVALUEINDEX <POWER SCHEME GUID> 238C9FA8-0AAD-41ED-83F4-97BE242C8F20 A4B195F5-8225-47D8-8012-9D41369786E2 0

What about Narcolepsy?

Another common issue with Windows systems that enter standby is PC Narcolepsy.  PC Narcolepsy refers to a behavior of the Windows Operating System, where a computer that resumes standby from a Wake-on-LAN (WOL) or scheduled wakeup event will enter standby again after 2 minutes unless there is user interaction, such as pressing a key on the mouse or keyboard. In Windows XP, there wasn’t any way to change this behavior. Fortunately, Windows 7 introduces a new power option that can change the amount of time that the computer resumes from standby:  System unattended sleep timeout. However this setting is hidden in the power profile by default. Why is it hidden? I’m not quite sure. Perhaps because it could be confused with the standby timeout setting. It can be unhidden using this reg file:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\238C9FA8-0AAD-41ED-83F4-97BE242C8F20\7bc4a2f9-d8fc-4469-b07b-33eb785aaca0]
"Attributes"=dword:00000000

Once unhidden, this setting will be visible in the advanced power options dialog. However, most sysadmins need a way to automate the configuration of this setting. Like several of the settings above, this can be done if you know the GUID of the power profile that you want to set this setting on:

POWERCFG.EXE /SETACVALUEINDEX <POWER SCHEME GUID> 238c9fa8-0aad-41ed-83f4-97be242c8f20 7bc4a2f9-d8fc-4469-b07b-33eb785aaca0 <DURATION IN SECONDS>
POWERCFG.EXE /SETDCVALUEINDEX <POWER SCHEME GUID> 238c9fa8-0aad-41ed-83f4-97be242c8f20 7bc4a2f9-d8fc-4469-b07b-33eb785aaca0 <DURATION IN SECONDS>

Between Windows XP and Windows 7, Microsoft made significant changes under the hood to power management in order to make Windows a more energy efficient OS. While Windows Vista included a significant number of changes to power management, it really seems like Microsoft put much more effort into making Windows 7 more power efficient after complaints about terrible battery life with Windows Vista. This PDF provides a general overview of these changes. Many of the changes work out of the box, which is great for overworked sysadmins. However, there are a few settings that need to be configured as needed, particularly when it comes to system idle and standby settings. With Windows 7, Microsoft has included several additional features and troubleshooting tools that address some of the headaches caused by power management in Windows XP.

Standby Me

Before we dive into the guts of power management in Windows 7, let’s discuss the value of taking the time to configure power management settings.  Since going green is a hot trend right now, many companies are starting to put pressure on sysadmins to find ways to squeeze power savings from a major offender to the energy grid: Computers. At many companies, workstations are left running 24×7, even when not in use. If the work week is only 40 hours, that means that many of these computers are in a Powered On with Nothing to Do (POND) state for 100+ hours per week.  As Ford recently discovered, turning computers off when they are not in use is a great way to reduce energy waste and save some serious coin!

One disadvantage to turning off computers completely when not in use is that, when a user needs to use the computer again, they have to wait for the computer to start up, then log in, then load applications and documents again. Admittedly, this a bit time consuming and frustrating for an end user.  Therefore, many sysadmins opt to put computers into a low power standby mode as a fair compromise between user experience and energy savings. Standby mode, which powers down most system components as suspends the system state to RAM, allows the user instantly resume where they left off when they last used the computer. In modern computers, standby only consumes slightly more power than when in a powered off state.

Applying Settings with POWERCFG

If you’ve used the POWERCFG utility in Windows XP, you’ll probably find one major difference in Windows 7: GUIDs. In Windows XP, a power scheme could be configured by specifying the name of the scheme in the POWERCFG command line syntax. In Windows 7, that is no longer an option. Instead, you must specify the GUID associated with a particular power scheme when configuring and activating a scheme. While POWERCFG in Windows 7 still includes a way to change the monitor, disk, and standby timeouts of the active scheme, it takes some understanding of the Windows 7 power management GUIDs to do anything beyond that. Not only are the power schemes themselves identified by GUIDs, Windows 7 uses GUIDs to uniquely identify settings and groups of settings as well. While the idea of working with GUIDs may seem like a daunting task, it’s actually pretty easy to wrap your head around once you know how to find and use these GUIDs.

The most straightforward way to get a list of power scheme, group, and setting GUIDs is to run POWERCFG -QUERY. As a side note, this command tends to generate a lot of output, so it may be wise to pipe the output to a file like this:

POWERCFG.EXE -QUERY > powercfg.txt

After running the command, the current directory should contain the powercfg.txt file with the output from POWERCFG – QUERY inside of it. Here’s what it looks like:

As you can see from the example above, POWERCFG -QUERY provides very detailed information about every power scheme and setting set in power options in a nicely indented format. At the top is the GUID associated with the power scheme (High Performance). Directly below that is the GUID that identifies the first subgroup of settings (settings belonging to no subgroup). The GUIDs that identify each setting are directly below that, with information about possible setting values.

Example

Let’s say we wanted to change the setting Require a Password on Wakeup to No within the High Performance power scheme. First, we need to use the output from POWERCFG -QUERY to find the associated GUIDs and setting index:

These values are then plugged into commands POWERCFG -SETACVALUEINDEX and POWERCFG -SETDCVALUEINDEX:

POWERCFG -SETACVALUEINDEX 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c fea3413e-7e05-4911-9a71-700331f1c294 0e796bdb-100d-47d6-a2d5-f7d2daa51f51 0
POWERCFG -SETDCVALUEINDEX 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c fea3413e-7e05-4911-9a71-700331f1c294 0e796bdb-100d-47d6-a2d5-f7d2daa51f51 0

As you may have guessed, the first command affects the computer while it’s plugged in. The second affects the computer while on battery. There’s a few things that have been implied in this example, but are worth covering in case you plan to script power settings for a fleet of computers:

• Windows includes three built-in power schemes: Balanced, High Performance, and Power Saver. These schemes are identified by the same GUID on every Windows 7 computer.
• The GUIDs that identify subgroups and power settings are the same on every Windows 7 computer.
• To create a new scheme, use this command:

  POWERCFG -DUPLICATESCHEME <POWER SCHEME GUID> <NEW GUID>
  

  The <NEW GUID> parameter is optional. If it is not specified, POWERCFG will automatically generate a new GUID.

• Remember that if <NEW GUID> is omitted, the GUID that identifies your new scheme will be different on each computer that you run this command on.