Windows 10: Enable or Disable Automatic Maintenance Wake Up Computer in Windows 10

How to: Enable or Disable Automatic Maintenance Wake Up Computer in Windows 10

How to Enable or Disable Automatic Maintenance to Wake Up Computer in Windows 10


Automatic Maintenance is when Windows automatically runs maintenance on a daily schedule when you're not using your computer.

This includes tasks such as software updates, Windows Updates, security scanning, and system diagnostics. This maintenance will run daily if you aren't using your computer at the time you've chosen. If your computer is in use at the scheduled time or maintenance is behind schedule, Automatic Maintenance will run the next time the computer is not being used.

The goal of Automatic Maintenance is to combine all background maintenance activity in Windows and help third-party developers add their maintenance activity to Windows without negatively impacting performance and energy efficiency. Additionally, Automatic Maintenance enables users as well as enterprises to be in control of maintenance activity scheduling and configuration.

The Automatic Maintenance wakeup policy specifies if Automatic Maintenance should make a wake request to the OS for the daily scheduled maintenance.

• If you enable this policy setting, the Allow scheduled maintenance to wake up my computer at the scheduled time Automatic Maintenance setting will be checked (on) and grayed out.
• If you disable this policy setting, the Allow scheduled maintenance to wake up my computer at the scheduled time Automatic Maintenance setting will be unchecked (off) and grayed out.
• If you set this policy setting to the default Not Configured, the Allow scheduled maintenance to wake up my computer at the scheduled time Automatic Maintenance setting can be changed to check or uncheck.

This tutorial will show you how to enable or disable Automatic Maintenance to be able to wake up the computer for the daily scheduled maintenance in Windows 10.

*note You must be signed in as an administrator to enable or disable the Automatic Maintenance wakeup policy.


CONTENTS:

• Option One: Enable or Disable Automatic Maintenance to Wake Up Computer in Local Group Policy Editor
• Option Two: Enable or Disable Automatic Maintenance to Wake Up Computer using a REG file

EXAMPLE: Automatic Maintenance "Allow scheduled maintenance to wake up my computer at the scheduled time"















OPTION ONE [/i] Enable or Disable Automatic Maintenance to Wake Up Computer in Local Group Policy Editor
*note The Local Group Policy Editor is only available in the Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, and Education editions.

All editions can use Option Two.
1. Open the Local Group Policy Editor.

2. Navigate to the key below in the left pane of the Local Group Policy Editor. (see screenshot below)
*Arrow Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Maintenance Scheduler




3. In the right pane of Maintenance Scheduler in Local Group Policy Editor, double click/tap on the Automatic Maintenance WakeUp Policy policy to edit it. (see screenshot above)

4. Do step 5 (enable), step 6 (disable), or step 7 (default) below for what you would like to do.


5. To Enable Automatic Maintenance to Wake Up Computer
A) Select (dot) Enabled, click/tap on OK, and go to step 8 below. (see screenshot below)

6. To Disable Automatic Maintenance to Wake Up Computer
A) Select (dot) Disabled, click/tap on OK, and go to step 8 below. (see screenshot below)

7. Default Not Configured Automatic Maintenance to WakeUp Policy
A) Select (dot) Not Configured, click/tap on OK, and go to step 8 below. (see screenshot below)




8. You can now close the Local Group Policy Editor if you like.





OPTION TWO [/i] Enable or Disable Automatic Maintenance to Wake Up Computer using a REG file

*note The downloadable .reg files below will add and modify the DWORD value in the registry key below.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Task Scheduler\Maintenance

WakeUp DWORD

(delete) = Default
0 = Disable
1 = Enable


1. Do step 2 (enable), step 3 (disable), or step 4 (default) below for what you would like to do.


2. To Enable Automatic Maintenance to Wake Up Computer
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 5 below.

Enable_Automatic_Maintenance_Wakeup_Policy.reg

Download

3. To Disable Automatic Maintenance to Wake Up Computer
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 5 below.

Disable_Automatic_Maintenance_Wakeup_Policy.reg

Download

4. Default Not Configured Automatic Maintenance to WakeUp Policy
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 5 below.

Default_Not_Configured_Automatic_Maintenance_Wakeup_Policy.reg

Download
5. Save the .reg file to your desktop.

6. Double click/tap on the downloaded .reg file to merge it.

7. When prompted, click/tap on Run, Yes (UAC), Yes, and OK to approve the merge.

8. You could now delete the downloaded .reg file if you like.

That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• How to Enable or Disable to Allow Wake Timers in Windows 10
• How to Enable or Disable Automatic Maintenance in Windows 10
• How to Manually Start or Stop Automatic Maintenance in Windows 10
• How to Change Automatic Maintenance Settings in Windows 10
• How to View All Automatic Maintenance Tasks in Windows 10
• How to Prevent Windows 10 from Deleting Thumbnail Cache as part of Automatic Maintenance
• How to Specify Automatic Maintenance Time to Run in Windows 10

:)

 

Enable or Disable Automatic Maintenance in Windows 10  


No problem.

In that case, temporarily enable Automatic Maintenance, open its settings, uncheck Allow scheduled maintenance to wake up my computer at the scheduled time, then disable Automatic Maintenance again.

 

Automatic Maintenance Disable Bug

I have recently been plagued with my computer waking up in the middle of the night and have gone through every step imaginable to resolve the issue.

• I checked the LAN and WiFi cards for being able to wake the computer, and disabled them.
• Disabled all my USB devices from being able to wake the computer
• Checked all scheduled tasks Task Scheduler and found nothing at the time of the event for the last run time. I did this right after turning it on to make sure no other events really had time to run.
• I checked powercfg /lastwake, which said unknown, and /waketimers, which listed nothing there.
• Checked UpdateOrchestrator and turned off their abilities to wake the computer.
• I ran the powershell command, Get-ScheduledTask | where {$_.settings.waketorun} and found nothing enabled
• I unchecked run Automatic Maintenance at a scheduled time
• I checked group policy for anything related to waking/rebooting for Windows Updates, and found nothing related.

There were a few other steps I went through that I found online in different articles, but nothing had worked. The most interesting thing about all this was that Automatic Maintenance had run at the exact time that my computer had generated it's Wake Event
in event viewer, even when being disabled. I have added a registry key to disabled it manually, that I found online, and if it works, I will edit my post to let others know that it worked, and where the key was added and with what name and value.

I made this post more so for visibility and as a bug report t bring the attention of support that may get an engineer to look at the issue.

My build version is: 1709 (16299.192)

[Moved from: Windows / Windows 10 / Windows settings]

 

Enable or Disable Automatic Maintenance in Windows 10


Hi, Brink,

I gave your suggestion a try, but see no toggling in the window via Control Panel at all. When I run your utility I get the message that the Registry has been changed, but this window doesn't do anything:





I do note, however, that the Last Run date is several days past and wonder if that's an indication that Auto Maintenance is indeed disabled, or if there's just nothing to do.

 

Enable or Disable Automatic Maintenance in Windows 10


Hello Jim,

Q1) It will not stop automatic updates in Windows Update, but you can use the tutorial below for that.

https://www.windowsphoneinfo.com/threads/enable-or-disable-windows-update-automatic-updates-in-windows-10.7745/

Q2) Sure, you could use the .reg files to toggle Automatic Maintenance on/off as you like.

 

Change Automatic Maintenance Settings in Windows 10  


I've had some trouble getting Automatic Maintenance to actually wake the computer on a schedule in Windows 10. Changes to the Automatic Maintenance mechanism have made the description in the Control Panel misleading, and most search results about the issue are people trying to prevent Automatic Maintenance from waking the computer. So to that end, here is some information I've put together.

To support Automatic Maintenance, Windows 8 introduced new task settings and a new kind of task: the Automatic Maintenance Task. Unlike other tasks, these tasks do not use triggers. Instead, they define a frequency at which they should run and a frequency at which they must run. When Automatic Maintenance rolls around, the Task Scheduler uses this information to decide which of these tasks get to run during the maintenance period.

Presumably, the new Maintenance Activator task is built into the Task Scheduler and represents the set of all automatic maintenance tasks. It's scheduled to run daily at whatever time you set in the Control Panel (plus a randomized delay, up to four hours by default, and configurable in Group Policy).

In Windows 10, the Maintenance Activator task sets a wake timer only if there are one or more individual maintenance tasks that are set to wake the computer, and you checked the box to allow Automatic Maintenance to wake the computer in the Control Panel. This behavior differs from Windows 8, where the Regular Maintenance task would always wake the computer at the scheduled time if you checked the box in the Control Panel.

For reference, you can use this PowerShell pipeline to list all automatic maintenance tasks:
Code:

Code:

Get-ScheduledTask | ? {$_.Settings.MaintenanceSettings} | Out-GridView

To list only the automatic maintenance tasks which could wake the computer, use this pipeline:
Code:

Code:

Get-ScheduledTask | ? {$_.Settings.WakeToRun -and $_.Settings.MaintenanceSettings} | Out-GridView

Very few automatic maintenance tasks are set to wake the computer, and most of them are disabled most of the time. That means that to have Automatic Maintenance wake the computer reliably at the scheduled time, it's necessary to change some other task to wake the computer. The Windows Defender Verification task is a suitable choice, as it's already set to run daily with a tight deadline.