Computer wakes from sleep automatically every night

The "Change active hours" support page article you linked to just makes it sound like Windows will do a "Reboot" after a self installed Update, but only if outside the hours you've scheduled as your "computer use period".  In my case, the only time period Windows Update could reboot my laptop would be between the hours of 3 am and 9 am if the computer is running.  I don't think this setting is what is actually waking up my computer from Sleep Mode.

It seems more like something else like Windows waking up the computer to just look for Updates.  Every time I've woke the computer up the next day, I have never seen any evidence in Windows Updates that shows an Update was installed and the computer was rebooted.  I also leave programs up and running when I put my laptop to sleep - like the program that captures the power level data in the graph I posted earlier.  If Windows actually did install and reboot itself, then I would see that those programs where not running when I wake up the computer myself - I have never seen that happen, so that tells me Windows has never found, installed and rebooted my laptop while it's been in Sleep Mode.

In my case, if Windows is actually looking for Updates every 3 hours after the computer goes into Sleep Mode, then that would explain the time cycle I've shown in my graph.

If something in Task Scheduler wakes up my computer to check for Windows Updates, and Windows happens to find an Update and it's between 3 am and 9 am in my case, then it will do a reboot if the Update requires it.  That's how I read it.

I might still try the PsTool "fix" and see if it works and how long it lasts.  Thanks for the step-by-step instructions.

And yes, it's really a shame that Microsoft has to wake up people's computers while in Sleep Mode.  Do they not realize that people who put their computer in Sleep Mode will most likely be waking them up themselves the next day to use them.  Windows can check for Updates then ... that would be no different than it checking for Updates when millions of people are using their computers.  Let people's computers Sleep if they want them to Sleep !!

I would make more sense for Microsoft to allow people to setup their computer to do automatic night time Updates, and allow Windows to wake their computer up (and allow a Reboot if required) if that's what they really want, instead of waking people's computers up from Sleep Mode when those people DON'T want that to happen.

Hi @ZeeOhSix, your system's behavior is different from mine and some others on this page: in the problem I've encountered, the machine wakes up and is not able to go back to sleep. Thus I come into my home office, my screen is on, the fan is roaring, and my keyboard is hot :-(

I've had success with this setting for some time, and I was wondering if you would try it too and let me know. If usoft is going to force my machine awake, why not have it do that during normal business hours? It's not as if a Windows Update check will bring the machine to its knees!

I changed the "active hours" of my computer to the middle of the night so that if Windows decides to update my machine, it's doing it during the day when my machine is already on: Start button

• Settings button - Update & Security - Windows Update - Change active hours. I set mine from 5 pm to 9 am.

I wanted to add some information to this thread.  Attached is a graph of a 12 hour window where a program was monitoring the power state of my computer (W/U indicates the times where it woke up by itself).  This was with all sleep timers set to "Disabled" in "Power Options > Sleep > Allow wake timers".   Note that the computer wakes up exactly 3 hours after it goes to sleep.  It wakes up by itself, stays on for 45 minutes because that's my setting to sleep if there is no user activity, then wakes up again in 3 hours ... and it will repeat this cycle forever if I would let it.

So what program or process is causing this?  If I do a DOS command of 'powercfg /waketimes' two things show up.

1. [PROCESS] StartMenuExperienceHost.exe
2. [SERVICE] svchost.exe (associated with 'UpdateOrchestrator' for Backup Scan)

Microsoft - please make ALL sleep times become disabled when someone sets "Allow wake times" to Disabled ... like it should be.

I found this thread, and have to say my frustration level is 10 on a scale of 10.  I tried the: Power & sleep settings> Additional power settings > Change plan settings > Change advanced power settings > Sleep (expand) > Allow wake timers (expand) > DISABLE  ... "fix" and it does NOT work! 

If it actually did disable ALL wake times then that would make way too much sense.  Is it actually broken, or is Microsoft just trying to fool people in believing that they have control over their own computers.

I've also tried many of the other "fix" suggestions and none have worked so far.  I must have spent dozens of hours searching the internet and trying to find a fix for this issue, and after reading 7 pages in this thread there still doesn't seem to be a permanent fix.

Come on Microsoft ... I don't think it's right to wake up people's computers when they have put them into Sleep Mode for a reason.  Why are you trying to infuriate your customers?  Please be better than this and let people have control on how their computer behaves in Sleep Mode.