Task Scheduler won't wake the computer

Question

I want my computer to start uTorrent at 4 o'clock in the morning, when I'm asleep. But the computer is a bit noisy so I put it to sleep mode every time I go to bed.

I've tried creating a task in Task Scheduler with this parameters:

• Run whether user is logged in or not
• Daily At 4:00 every day
• Start a program "C:\Program Files\uTorrent\uTorrent.exe"
• Wake the computer to run this task

I've tried to change the time to run to make sure the computer wakes up and runs uTorrent. But it doesn't.

What am I doing wrong? Maybe I've lost something?

Answer 1

I had the same problem. In the end it was a stupid default configuration in the Windows 7 power plan options. Go to "Control Panel -> All Control Panel Items -> Power Options -> Edit Plan Settings" for the power plan u are using. Then select "Change advanced power settings". Next go to "Sleep -> Allow wake timers" and enable them there. At least in my case they were by default disabled. IMHO kinda stupid especially if one can schedule tasks that are supposed to wake up without getting a warning.

Answer 2

If you are putting your computer to sleep with the commonly used batch script command Rundll32.exe Powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState Sleep then the scheduled task will not be able to wake the computer from sleep, this is due to what appears to be a bug in Rundll32.exe.

Credit goes to Techie007L's post on the microsoft forums for discovering this and proposing a solution. Instead of calling Rundll32.exe in your batch script you download an alternative tool and call that instead.

Unfortunately, after all the features it has, the Microsoft shutdown command is missing the standby feature! So, it you want to put your computer to sleep via command line, you'll need to install a more capable tool before you can use the last command above:

1. Download Sysinternals PsTools.
2. The download should be a ZIP file. Open it and copy PsShutdown.exe to your > desktop.
3. On your desktop, right-click PsShutdown.exe and click Copy. Right-click it > again and click Properties.
4. Tick Unblock and click [OK].
5. Open File Explorer, navigate to "C:\Windows", scroll down, right-click the > system32 folder and click Paste.
6. To enter standby, you can now use this command: psshutdown -d -t 0

Answer 3

Use WakeUpOnStandBy. An excellent freeware utility that does exactly that, and then some more if you need it.

Answer 4

How about you set the auto power on timer in BIOS?

It should be under the power management section of the BIOS, named something like "Wake by RTC etc". You may see the below example BIOS screenshot:

Answer 5

If the task wakes up the computer but gets stuck in the login screen go the group policy. Add your username into this:

Computer Configuration-->Policies-->Windows Settings-->Security Settings-->Local Policies-->User Rights Assignment--> allow logon locally

Actually, the task does not need to be logged to work. Simply uncheck the task the option "run whether the user is logged or not". The task will just do whatever you will ask (eg. play a sound using WMP) behind the logging screen. (If you really need to log on edit the group policies).

Answer 6

You might have to enable hybrid sleep in order for it to work. The quickest way to do this is to run powercfg.exe -H ON(see technet) from an elevated command prompt.

Answer 7

if its a laptop you need to enable timers in the sleep category of your power options.

Select the power options from the menu Select the current power option select change plan settings select change advanced power settings click on the 'plus' next to 'sleep' click on the 'plus' next to 'allow wake timers' Seletc battery and set to enable select on power and set to enable repeat for other power plans then this should work.

I set the task scheduler to run a batch file that contains the text 'echo hello' without the single quotes and it started my laptop up.

hope this works for you all.

Answer 8

Make sure you follow everything in this article accurately. I've also had an issue with accounts that have no password before. If your account does not have a password, try giving it one and see if the results differ, I'm pretty sure you need a password to run a scheduled task. If it already has one, make sure it was typed correctly. You should be able to see why the last task didn't run successfully in task scheduler.