Last Updated on December 26, 2022 by Mathew Diekhake
You can use an Allow Wake Timer to bring your computer out of its “Sleep” state on a scheduled time, so you don’t have to be around the computer to wake it up personally. This may be an essential feature to some people—perhaps you know someone needs to remote connect to your computer, but you won’t be around to let them in, so forth.
The following tutorial demonstrates how to add and remove the Allow Wake Timers to the Power Options menu when you’re using a version of the Windows 10 operating system.
An example of the Allow Wake Timers settings from the Power Options menu:
Method One: To Enable or Disable Allow Wake Timers in Power Options
1. Open the Run dialog by pressing the Windows logo + R keys on your keyboard.
2. From Run, type control.exe powercfg.cpl,,3 and click OK.
3. To Disable Wake Timers
a. Expand Sleep, expand Allow wake timers, and then from the drop-down Setting: menu, select Disable. Click OK to save the changes and close the Power Options dialog.
4. To Enable Wake Timers
a Expand Sleep, expand Allow wake timers, and then from the drop-down Setting: menu, select Enable. Click OK to save the changes and close the Power Options dialog.
OR
1. Open Settings and click on the System icon from the main Windows Settings menu.
2. From System’s left menu, click on Power & Sleep and then click on the Additional power settings link in the right side of the same window.
3. Under the Preferred plans heading, next to the power plan that you’re using, click on the Change plan settings link.
4. Click on the Change advanced power settings link.
5. To Disable Wake Timers
a. Expand Sleep, expand Allow wake timers, and then from the drop-down Setting: menu, select Disable. Click OK to save the changes and close the Power Options dialog.
6. To Enable Wake Timers
a. Expand Sleep, expand Allow wake timers, and then from the drop-down Setting: menu, select Enable. Click OK to save the changes and close the Power Options dialog.
You can now close the Power Options dialog and Settings app, and continue using your computer.
Method Two: How to Enable/Disable Allow Wake Timers in Command Prompt
1. Open the Command Prompt window.
2. Type one of the following commands into the command line, depending on what you want to achieve, and then press the Enter key on your keyboard to execute it:
3. To Disable On Battery
powercfg /SETDCVALUEINDEX SCHEME_CURRENT 238c9fa8-0aad-41ed-83f4-97be242c8f20 bd3b718a-0680-4d9d-8ab2-e1d2b4ac806d 0
4. To Enable On Battery
powercfg /SETDCVALUEINDEX SCHEME_CURRENT 238c9fa8-0aad-41ed-83f4-97be242c8f20 bd3b718a-0680-4d9d-8ab2-e1d2b4ac806d 1
5. To Use Important Wake Timers Only On Battery
powercfg /SETDCVALUEINDEX SCHEME_CURRENT 238c9fa8-0aad-41ed-83f4-97be242c8f20 bd3b718a-0680-4d9d-8ab2-e1d2b4ac806d 2
OR
6. To Disable Plugged In
powercfg /SETACVALUEINDEX SCHEME_CURRENT 238c9fa8-0aad-41ed-83f4-97be242c8f20 bd3b718a-0680-4d9d-8ab2-e1d2b4ac806d 0
7. To Enable Plugged In
powercfg /SETACVALUEINDEX SCHEME_CURRENT 238c9fa8-0aad-41ed-83f4-97be242c8f20 bd3b718a-0680-4d9d-8ab2-e1d2b4ac806d 1
8. To Import Wake Timers Only Plugged In
powercfg /SETACVALUEINDEX SCHEME_CURRENT 238c9fa8-0aad-41ed-83f4-97be242c8f20 bd3b718a-0680-4d9d-8ab2-e1d2b4ac806d 2
You can now close the Command Prompt window and continue using your computer if you like.
That’s all.
March 31, 2019 @ 11:55
Another outstanding tutorial, Mathew.
And thanks for this feature Windows.
I hope that sometime soon in a future update that Microsoft makes Cortana to be able to track multiple Wake Timers.
I suggested a feature for multiple File Explorer window and I could be crazy but I’m pretty sure they did it. Hopefully, they do this one too.
They also need to add multiple Movies & TV app windows playing content at the same time instead of it overriding whatever was playing first. It has the one drawback where you will have to close the window if you wanted to override, but at least it gives people the option of using two things at once.