How do I stop 'NT TASK\HP\HP Print Scan Doctor\Printer Health Monitor' from waking up my computer?

I am shocked that after half a decade of people digging in to find this task which runs HPPrintScanDoctor on a regular daily time which is set to Wake the computer to run this task, HP has done nothing but ask people to uninstall and reinstall the very things that set up the task.

You could:

• Delete the task in Task Scheduler, but it gets set up again
• Disable the task in Task Scheduler, but it gets re-enabled
• Disallow the "Wake the computer to run this task" option of the task, but it gets allowed again
  • HP Print Scan Doctor, at irregular update intervals, sets up the daily timer task to wake the machine to run itself daily; even if the task is deleted, disabled or set to not wake the machine.
• Delete HPPrintScanDoctor from C:\ProgramFiles\HP and in a month or two find it gets reinstalled.
  • It seems from updates to HP Smart from the Windows App Store

The removal and reinstallation of HP drivers just removes the task until the next time one of the installed HP files decides to set the task as a daily timer again.

The real fix, the one that requires HP's attention and not customer's bumbling about with poor support, is for someone to change the way the program sets up this, and all tasks, such that they DO NOT WAKE THE MACHINE TO RUN THIS TASK. Ideally Windows could allow admin users to disallow ALL tasks from having this setting active, by default.

My desktop is set to sleep after 8 hours, because I expect to command it to sleep; When it wakes from this task and I come home to find it running for nothing (the printer, by the way, is totally stand alone and wifi enabled, and doesn't really get any attention from Print Scan Doctor); well my room is hot and my hardware is wearing down for nothing.

My laptop is even worse, in that sometimes it's turned on and running hot while in a sleeve inside a backpack. That might lead to real damage to my property. For a printer that's not even on the network the laptop is on when on the go.

• Open Task Scheduler
• Go to Task Scheduler Library> HP> HP Print Scan Doctor
• On the right, under Actions > Scroll down to Selected Item, click Properties
• Go to the Conditions tab
• Under Power, uncheck Wake the computer to run this task

Thank you, Display Name. I am SO SICK of this. What a horrid company HP is. I only use their printer because my Mom was throwing hers away, because for years she couldn't get it to work with her Mac properly. Did you know HP wants to turn ink into a subscription service? It's a disgusting company that hasn't improved their printers or software for years and has a business model entirely set up to intentionally cheat people on ink, a product that still seems dirt cheap in a Sharpie, for some reason...

It is absolutely INFURIATING to come home to my computer turned on for NO reason, just burning electricity and wearing down my fans and new OLED for NOTHING!

So, what can I do? Based on your research, it seems I only have two options: 1. I start shutting off the computer completely. 2. I just uninstall the printer until I actually need to use it, which is luckily not that often for me...

Option number 2, I think.

HP, you are the worst. Everyone I know in multiple work environments I've experienced hates your company and your printers. I cannot wait for a new company to come into the printer market and upend it with cheap ink and reliable machines. It's coming...

I put a task in my todo list called "Wage war on HP's stupid printer software". It has been waking my computer at ridiculous times, wasting electricity, heating up my room, and even waking me up in the middle of the night. No amount of deletion or editing would make it stop. I've contacted support, I've scoured the internet, nothing.

Then I did the following:

1. Ask ChatGPT to come up with a PowerShell script to disable Wake the computer to run this task for any tasks with "Printer Health Monitor" in the title (there are 2).
2. Create a task to run this script at login every day

Now let's see if I can share all of that.

(1) See if it's HP causing the issue

After your computer is woken up, run this from PowerShell:

powercfg -lastwake

If it says "NT TASK\HP\HP Print Scan Doctor\Printer Health Monitor", then create a PowerShell script by copy/pasting this into a text editor (e.g. VSCode or Notepad)

(2) PowerShell script

# Define the partial task name to search for

$partialTaskName = "Printer Health Monitor"

# Get all tasks that contain the specified partial name

$tasks = Get-ScheduledTask | Where-Object { $_.TaskName -like "*$partialTaskName*" }

if ($tasks) {

    foreach ($task in $tasks) {

        # Get the current task settings and update the WakeToRun property

        $taskSettings = $task.Settings

        $taskSettings.WakeToRun = $false

        # Create the updated settings object

        $newTaskSettings = New-ScheduledTaskSettingsSet

        if ($taskSettings.AllowStartIfOnBatteries -ne $null) {

            $newTaskSettings.AllowStartIfOnBatteries = $taskSettings.AllowStartIfOnBatteries

        }

        if ($taskSettings.DontStopIfGoingOnBatteries -ne $null) {

            $newTaskSettings.DontStopIfGoingOnBatteries = $taskSettings.DontStopIfGoingOnBatteries

        }

        if ($taskSettings.StartWhenAvailable -ne $null) {

            $newTaskSettings.StartWhenAvailable = $taskSettings.StartWhenAvailable

        }

        if ($taskSettings.MultipleInstancesPolicy -ne $null) {

            $newTaskSettings.MultipleInstancesPolicy = $taskSettings.MultipleInstancesPolicy

        }

        if ($taskSettings.DisallowStartOnRemoteAppSession -ne $null) {

            $newTaskSettings.DisallowStartOnRemoteAppSession = $taskSettings.DisallowStartOnRemoteAppSession

        }

        if ($taskSettings.UseUnifiedSchedulingEngine -ne $null) {

            $newTaskSettings.UseUnifiedSchedulingEngine = $taskSettings.UseUnifiedSchedulingEngine

        }

        if ($taskSettings.Priority -ne $null) {

            $newTaskSettings.Priority = $taskSettings.Priority

        }

        # Always set WakeToRun to false

        $newTaskSettings.WakeToRun = $false

        # Create the new task definition

        $newTaskDefinition = New-ScheduledTask -Action $task.Actions -Trigger $task.Triggers -Principal $task.Principal -Settings $newTaskSettings

        # Update the task with the new settings

        Set-ScheduledTask -TaskName $task.TaskName -TaskPath $task.TaskPath -Settings $newTaskSettings

        Write-Output "The task '$($task.TaskPath)$($task.TaskName)' has been updated to disable 'Wake the computer to run this task'."

    }

} else {

    Write-Output "No tasks containing '$partialTaskName' were found."

}

(3) Create a task to run the PowerShell script

• Task Scheduler --> Create Task
• General:
  • Run whether user is logged on or not
  • Run with highest privileges
• Triggers:
  • At log on of any user
• Actions:
  • Start a program
  • Program/script: powershell
  • Add arguments (optional): -File "path\to\script\disable_hp_wake.ps1" > "path\to\your\desktop\disable_hp_wake_log.txt"
    • ^ Change those paths
• Conditions:
  • Whatever you want
• Settings:
  • Allow task to be run on demand
  • Run task as soon as possible after a scheduled start is missed
  • Stop the task if it6 runs longer than: 1 hour
  • If the running task does not end when requested, force it to stop

If you're having issues, tell ChatGPT what those issues are and it'll help you.

I hope this helps someone out there. And I hope someone at HP gets fired for doing this... So many people on the internet are complaining about being unable to permanently disable this horrendous malware disguised as software, and HP is doing nothing about it.

Screw HP! You CANNOT under any circumstances stop this malicious software from ruining your computer. I have gone through my registry entry by entry and deleted every single entry with HP in it, and this is after un installing all the HP printer software I had installed. Then I also scanned all my hard drives for ANY HP software remnants, and manually deleted them all, including in system folders. I through my terrible useless HP printer in the trash 5 years ago and my computer STILL WAKES UP FROM SLEEP TO RUN PRINT DOCTOR TO THIS DAY! I would be less pissed if I found out I got some wicked nasty virus off the dark web and my computer needs to be thrown away. Screw you HP.