How to understand and control PC suspension

Question

I am using Windows 7 and it goes "off" periodically, I presume either suspended or screen locked (how can I tell the difference?)

This is a problem because sometimes I run applications that should not be suspended. For example, today I had the laptop in a car and it was reading the OBDII sensor via a USB connector collecting live data. In the middle of the trip the screen went dark. When I clicked it, the rainbow with the clock appeared, I clicked that and it invited me to log in. Was the computer suspended, thus interrupting the collection of data?

How can I understand and control the mode of the computer to ensure that vital processes that should not be suspended continue running?

These are my current power settings:

This would seem to suggest the computer would never sleep or hibernate, so am I safe in assuming that the data collection was not interrupted? I saw no data file in the directory where it supposed to be, so I am afraid it may have been interrupted anyway somehow.

Answer 1

Click Start, search Power Options and you can change how your OS handles inactivity. You can also create power plans, one for normal use and one when you want it to stay permanently awake.