Windows 7: Goes to sleep while active

Hello folks.
I've got a very annoying thing happening with this new machine (Home Premium x64). It seems to go to sleep based entirely on how long it's been since I touched the mouse or keyboard. If there's a program running, like a virus scan or a download in progress, it goes to sleep right in the middle of it. That's incredibly stupid!
How do I make it stay awake when it's in the middle of doing something, even if it's not receiving input from me?

Thanks

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Is it going to sleep, or is it using a blank screensaver?
Type Change Screen Saver from the start button and check your settings.

I would say that you have the blank screen saver selected.

I would say change power settings to never go to sleep

No, it's not the blank screen saver, it's going to sleep. If it was the screen saver, it would finish its task, and it doesn't.

And I see at the bottom of this screen a link to someone else having the same problem.

It's abysmally stupid if Windows 7 can't even tell when it's active and when it's not!

In your power settings you have it set to go to sleep after 2 min and when it's asleep it can't do anything, so to change this behavior change the power setting to never

No, I have it set to go to sleep after 15 minutes. I know about power settings. But when I set it to 15 minutes, I never guessed Windows 7 would be this stupid.

This is "the best Windows"? Goes to sleep in the middle of a job and the only way to fix it is to turn off the power-saving settings?

For crying out loud, did they have 7th-graders writing the Windows 7 code? When the timer runs out, check the cpu to see if it's doing something... check your internet connection to see if data's coming in... If the answer's yes, DON'T GO TO SLEEP!

Windows XP works the same way unless the software running is specifically designed to keep the machine awake.