So does anyone know of an app that allows me to schedule standby and resume schedule? I ask b/c I have a computer in the other room with a wireless card (so no wake up on lan) that I'd like to not keep running all the time. Ideally, I if I can put it on a schedule, I can access it remotely during certain hours without keeping it on all the time.
-johnfdeluca
Here's the answer I came up with:
1. The resume operation is as simple as Adding a scheduled task (via control panel). It really doesn't matter what it launches...the key is I just set it up for daily @ 6PM and ensure the "Wake this computer to run this task" under the settings Tab - Power Management section is checked.
2. The suspend operation is a bit trickier since Windows doesn't come with a pre-installed method to suspend (shutdown....yes but suspend...no). So a small utility via sysinternals to the rescue: PsShutdown. This utility accessible via microsoft technet
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/miscellaneous/psshutdown.mspx supports the standby with the switch -d. So assuming you place PsShutdown in your C root directory, you simply add a task to run "C:\PsShutdown.exe -d". I set this up to run daily at midnight which then places the machine in suspend/standby each night.
The net is: A machine which wakes up at 6PM each night and then goes to sleep at midnight each night. Since the machine is not wired to the network, but rather wireless, I can't opt for a more elegant solution of using Wake on LAN features of a wired ethernet connection and a power management settings which place it to sleep after a period of inactivity.