Change when the computer sleeps - from cmd line

I ocassionally like to switch the time the computer goes to sleep from 'Never' to
'5 minutes' or thereabouts every so often. I have been looking for a way to
automate that process. Wading through control panel to the settings page takes
a while and I don't use a standard keyboard and mouse on my Media Center box
to navigate.

I can shorten it somewhat by creating a command line shortcut containing the following:

Code:

control /name Microsoft.PowerOptions

but this only gets me down about 2 layers and I still have to try to use an unweildy
mouse and keyboard to get to the next page and change the settings.

Is there any way to create another batch file or some other script that will
perform this function w/o having to change the settings from the window screens?
Perhaps a .reg file to change the setting in the registry, if that's where it is?

The easiest way would be to create the two profiles you want, one under balanced, and one under high performance, or power save...... and then just use a shortcut to switch between them... no batch file needed that way... would be as simple as clicking a shortcut to go back and forth...



Edit: here is a link to the tutorial... that might have been helpful....

Power Plan - Create Shortcut to Change Power Plan

I had seen the references to changing power plans but thought that was
a bit excessive and unnecessary since I can change the settings
'When the computer sleeps' within the same power plan by changing the
settings in control panel.

Presumably, switching to an alternate power plan via the referenced
shortcuts would necessitate changing the 'Change when the computer sleeps'
setting under one particular alternate plan while retaining the default
for the other. This would not seem all that involved but when I made a
comparison of the Power registry key set to "Never" and "5 minutes", under
the same power plan, the only change was to the following key:

Never:

Code:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\User\PowerSchemes\
381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e\
238c9fa8-0aad-41ed-83f4-97be242c8f20\
29f6c1db-86da-48c5-9fdb-f2b67b1f44da]
"ACSettingIndex"=dword:00000000

Five Minutes:

Code:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\User\PowerSchemes\
381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e\
238c9fa8-0aad-41ed-83f4-97be242c8f20\
29f6c1db-86da-48c5-9fdb-f2b67b1f44da]
"ACSettingIndex"=dword:0000012c

Unfortunately, when I tried to place each different setting into .reg files and load them into the
registry, I got the following error message:

Code:

 Cannot import File.reg: Not all data was successfully wrtten to
the registry. Some keys are open by the system or other processes.

Apparently security configurations only allow the change to "ACSettingIndex" if it is done through the control panel.

I also do not wish to enter sleep/hybrid sleep mode with a command line entry, so
"Standby and Hibernate from Command Line" doesn't apply. I simply want to change
the idle time before the system enters sleep mode automatically.

While I haven't yet tested the shortcuts switching power plans, I wonder if there
isn't some other way to alter the "ACSettingIndex" under the same user. If Microsoft
allows it through Control Panel, it would seem possible.

OK, maybe not.

The shortcut files from the Power Plan Tutorial work well even though some
additional keys are added to the registry. It is unclear which ones actually
control the 'Sleep time' now but after changing the sleep time under one of
the power plans to 5 minutes and leaving the other at 'Never', I can switch
back and forth with one click.

The only change to the registry that occurs now is:

Code:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\User\PowerSchemes]
"ActivePowerScheme"="381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\PowerUser\PowerSchemes]
"ActivePowerScheme"="a1841308-3541-4fab-bc81-f71556f20b4a

Thanks, I knew there must be a way to do it!

Code:

powercfg -change -standby-timeout-ac

works perfectly w/o the registry bloat of changing Active Power Plan

Just out of curiosity, where did you get this info?

Anything that can be changed in the UI for power, can be done in the command line.

I would have thought the same, but until you came forward with the specifics, I
was at a loss. I've never tinkered much with power settings or any other Windows
settings for that matter, so I'm a babe in the woods about a lot of things.

Thanks for your help. I don't know when I have had a better outcome to a problem.