What is the "Automatic Maintenance"?

Windows 8 just notified me to run the Automatic Maintenance in the "Action Center". But what is that and what is it doing?

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windows-8

FiveO

Posted 2012-10-29T10:15:27.723

Reputation: 7 940

@Deanna: Manually starting an automatic task is an option, not a requirement. There is no need to manually start the task. The notification pops up when the automatic task was interrupted while running, by a user interacting with the system. If you can think of a better UI to convey the information let us hear it. – IInspectable – 2014-08-13T14:32:23.377

9Erm, "Automatic maintaince" needing starting manually sounds like a bit of an oxymoron... – Deanna – 2012-10-29T16:31:52.597

Now if we can figure out how to turn this crap off.... – Moab – 2012-10-29T16:36:48.030

Answers

According to official msdn site

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh848037(v=vs.85).aspx

Automatic maintenance regularly checks for solutions to problems (via Windows Error Report), runs the .NET Optimization Service and defrags all hard disks automatically -- all of this happens while the PC is on idle, of course.

If your computer is in Sleep mode, while on AC Power, it will be resumed and the maintenance activity will be carried out using full system resources to execute the task as fast as it can. After completion of the task, the system will be returned to Sleep mode. You will however, have to check the Allow scheduled maintenance to wake up my computer, if it is plugged in at the scheduled time option.

When Automatic Maintenance is being run, you will see its indication in the taskbar icon.

You can check out more details here http://www.thewindowsclub.com/automatic-maintenance-windows-8

Aditya

Posted 2012-10-29T10:15:27.723

Reputation: 731

This feature appears to optimize the performance of Windows 8 according to THIS POST:

Automatic Maintenance is designed to address these problems with maintenance activity in Windows:
- Deadline scheduling
- Resource utilization conflicts
- Energy efficiency
- Transparency to the user

According to THIS POST it will

perform maintenance tasks like software updates, security scans and system diagnostics

Karthik T

Posted 2012-10-29T10:15:27.723

Reputation: 2 654