Windows 10: Manually Start or Stop Automatic Maintenance in Windows 10

How to: Manually Start or Stop Automatic Maintenance in Windows 10

How to Manually Start or Stop Automatic Maintenance 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.

This tutorial will show you how to manually start or stop Automatic Maintenance on demand in Windows 10.

*note You must be signed in as an administrator to be able to start and stop Automatic Maintenance.


CONTENTS:

• Option One: To Start or Stop Automatic Maintenance in Control Panel
• Option Two: To Start or Stop Automatic Maintenance in Command Prompt
• Option Three: To Start or Stop Automatic Maintenance in PowerShell

OPTION ONE [/i] To Start or Stop Automatic Maintenance in Control Panel
1. Open the Control Panel (icons view), and click/tap on the Security and Maintenance icon.

2. Do step 2 (start) or step 3 (stop) below for what you would like to do.


3. To Start Automatic Maintenance
A) Expand open Maintenance, and click/tap on the Start maintenance link under Automatic Maintenance. (see screenshot below)





4. To Stop Automatic Maintenance
A) Expand open Maintenance, and click/tap on the Stop maintenance link under Automatic Maintenance. (see screenshot below)









OPTION TWO [/i] To Start or Stop Automatic Maintenance in Command Prompt
1. Open an elevated command prompt.

2. Do step 2 (start) or step 3 (stop) below for what you would like to do.


3. To Start Automatic Maintenance
A) Copy and paste the command below in the elevated command prompt, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)

*Arrow MSchedExe.exe Start





4. To Stop Automatic Maintenance
A) Copy and paste the command below in the elevated command prompt, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)

*Arrow MSchedExe.exe Stop









OPTION THREE [/i] To Start or Stop Automatic Maintenance in PowerShell
1. Open an elevated PowerShell.

2. Do step 2 (start) or step 3 (stop) below for what you would like to do.


3. To Start Automatic Maintenance
A) Copy and paste the command below in the elevated PowerShell, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)

*Arrow MSchedExe.exe Start





4. To Stop Automatic Maintenance
A) Copy and paste the command below in the elevated PowerShell, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)

*Arrow MSchedExe.exe Stop





That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• How to Change Automatic Maintenance Settings in Windows 10
• How to Enable or Disable Automatic Maintenance in Windows 10
• How to View All Automatic Maintenance Tasks in Windows 10
• How to Enable or Disable Automatic Maintenance to Wake Up Computer in Windows 10
• How to Specify Automatic Maintenance Time to Run in Windows 10

:)

 

Windows Maintenance never stops

I have "Idle Maintenance" and "Regular Maintenance" disabled in the Task Scheduler.
Now it does not run anymore when idle.

I will defrag my hdd and optimize my ssd manually.
I have scheduled windows defender anti virus scanning automatically once a week.
I do windows updates manually.

I don't think that windows automatic maintenance when idle important is, or is it?

 

Start Maintenance From Desktop Shortcut?

@Brink

Thank you for this suggestion.
It worked out perfectly.*Wink

 

Questions about Automatic Maintenance

I know when my computer is idle, Automatic Maintenance will start to run automatically and when I start to use my computer actively again it will stop. But since my usual idle time is far too short for the whole process to run completely, defragmentation
of my HDD (which is one of the first few steps in Automatic Maintenance) will never complete before I start using my computer, so I sometimes start maintenance manually through Control Panel. How often should I run it manually for best performance? Will overdoing
defragmentation harms my HDD?

Also, I am curious about what are the steps carried out in Automatic Maintenance, all I know is defragmentation is definitely part of it.

 

Can I have a tray icon for automatic maintenance windows 10

The weird thing is, I have set the automatic maintenance at 12.00 since I have lunch at that time but it didn't run yet today ... Or perhaps it doesn't run everyday like on windows 8.1?

(I did set the windows module installer service to manual though but I don't think it has anything to do with this maintenance)

 

Vista Automatic Updating Error

Automatic Updates isn't currently running.