Computer goes to sleep while a huge BC copy is underway?

[timg11]

The system is Windows 7 Professional. Using BC 3, latest version. Why would the system go into standby while BC is busily copying gigabytes of data (>1000 minutes remaining)?

Isn't there a Windows API that a task can call to say "don't sleep while I'm running". I would expect that BC would be using that API call, right?

[Michael Bulgrien]

Why don't you just change your Windows 7 power settings?

Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > and under Power Options, click "Change when the computer sleeps".

[timg11]

Of course the power settings can be changed manually, but why should that be necessary? I like my computer to automatically sleep when it is unused. That implies that it would not sleep when it is busy. Other programs seem to handle this issue just fine.

I have an audio recording program called Sonar that I have observed prevents the system from sleeping. Actually it goes a bit too far - even if it is inactive and minimized, the system will not sleep. However, I ran it in the background while copying with BC.

A quick search turns up the call SetThreadExecutionState(ES_SYSTEM_REQUIRED | ES_CONTINUOUS);
which should disable the sleep idle timer.
Shouldn't BC call that function when a copy starts, and then re-enable it when done?

The difference is this: I left my system running a BC copy overnight with Sonar running in the background. This morning, the system is still awake and using power. If BC was "power aware", it would have disabled sleep while copying, completed the copy some time in the night, and then the system would have gone into standby shortly after that.

Anyone from Scooter care to comment?

[Aaron]

Thanks for the feedback, Tim. I confirmed with our developers we don't do anything special to prevent sleeping, and the above function does look promising. We'll look into what it would take to implement. In the meantime, you'll have to take Michael's advice to prevent your computer from sleeping while performing any time intensive syncs.