Software shutdown after one hour inactivity

KittenK22 · 21 Apr 2014

We have are having a problem with a business software shutting down after one hour of inactivity. This is only happening with our new computers, Windows 7 - 64 bit. The older computers, running XP, are not having this problem. We were told by the company that this was issue with the computer, not their software. A timer issue. The biggest issue is, if we are in the process of entering an customer or purchase order and get called away for an extended period of time, this, and only this software may still be showing but as soon and a key is hit that page goes away and the person has to log back in. In the meantime, that order is hung out in la-la land...there but not.
Thanks for any help!

essenbe · 21 Apr 2014

KittenK22, I would suspect it has something to do with the settings of the software or your Advanced Power Plan settings. I would check and see if there is a setting in your software to turn off after a specific time of inactivity and check your power plan settings. It is difficult to advise you as it matters whether you are on a UPS or a laptop which uses batteries or a desktop. I would try to set your power plan settings to turn the hard drive off never.

I would not think it has to do with the OS but with the settings within it or the software. This will show you the power plan settings and how to change them. I would suggest if your computer is not running off of battery to set the hard drive to never turn off. It will turn off when you shut the computer down. Power Plan Settings - Change

KittenK22 · 22 Apr 2014

I had already changed some of the setting in the power plan but I have printed off your suggestions and will try to adjust some more and see if that helps.
I have spoken with the company we are set up with several times regarding the 'timing out' of their system and they have stated it is not a problem on their end, they believe it must have something to do with a timer in the computer.
Also, nothing else in the computer 'times out'. The computer will go into Power Save mode but nothing else that might be open and minimized (usually Outlook) is affected.

essenbe · 22 Apr 2014

KittenK22, there is no 'timer' in the OS other than the power plan options you are setting. That is what the power plan is, to allow you the flexibility to adjust those. If your company officials have 'power saving' settings that override your settings then that could be the problem. You stated that this program is the only program affected, which indicates to me that it may very well be a power saving setting within that piece of software.

I have used Windows 7 since before it was officially released and I only have 1 program that does what you are describing. It does it because I set it to do that. It is my Password Manager and I set it to turn off after 30 minutes of inactivity, for obvious reasons.

If changing the hard drive to never turn off does not work, you could save the document you are working on to your hard drive. If you are in the process of filling it out, each time you simply push save it should save it as it is at that time. If you get called away, just push save and it should be where you left it when you return. I know that isn't the solution you are looking for, but failing anything else, it would resolve your problem.

gregrocker · 22 Apr 2014

Setting Sleep to Never in Power Options may not be enough. As mentioned you may also need to enter the Advanced Power Options for your plan to set Hibernate to never.

That said, I much prefer Hibernate as a Shutdown alternative, for saving work on desktop if I walk away and decide not to come back, and for actual shutdown when desired. It starts up much faster and saves anything you want to leave out, although your order timeouts will probably react the same way as Shutdown. So you may need to either set Hibernate to never, or further out to four hours or such.

essenbe · 22 Apr 2014

You can disable Hibernate, if you want to by opening an elevated command prompt (Elevated Command Prompt) and tuping (or copy/paste) powercfg -h off and press enter. It will seem as though nothing happened, but it did.