Vista Home Premium PC "wakes" up by itself at around 6:50 a.m.

Hoping a Windows expert can help. Shortly after configuring Windows Media
Center to record live TV, my Vista PC is waking itself from sleep at around
6:50 a.m. I've checked the boards, but still the problem persists. So far
I've:

1. Made sure to tell Windows Media Center that I will download the guide
manually. I'd heard this process wakes computers up.

2. Checked powercfg -lastwake at the CMD prompt. It isn't very helpful, just
says:
Wake History Count - 1
Wake History [0]
Wake Source Count = 0

And that's it.

Hoping someone out there could help! Thanks!

Have you checked for scheduled events that would cause this? How about
program guide updates - did you configure Media Center to download these?

--
Richard G. Harper [MVP Shell/User]
* NEW! Catch my blog ... http://msmvps.com/blogs/rgharper/
* PLEASE post all messages and replies in the newsgroups
* The Website - http://rgharper.mvps.org/
* HELP us help YOU ... http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm


"M. Krantz" <> wrote in message
news:EBA2828B-5B5D-44BE-A886-...
> Hoping a Windows expert can help. Shortly after configuring Windows Media
> Center to record live TV, my Vista PC is waking itself from sleep at
> around
> 6:50 a.m. I've checked the boards, but still the problem persists. So far
> I've:
>
> 1. Made sure to tell Windows Media Center that I will download the guide
> manually. I'd heard this process wakes computers up.
>
> 2. Checked powercfg -lastwake at the CMD prompt. It isn't very helpful,
> just
> says:
> Wake History Count - 1
> Wake History [0]
> Wake Source Count = 0
>
> And that's it.
>
> Hoping someone out there could help! Thanks!

Hmm. Tried two things:

1. From Windows Media Center, I chose Tasks>Settings>General>Automatic
Download Options. From there, I checked the "manual Download" radio button
and clicked the Save option. I thought this would disable the program guide
update. Does it?

2. I checked Task Scheduler and did find, under the Microsoft>Windows>Media
Center key an entry called "mcupdate" with Status of "Ready" and a Trigger
time. I see that if I right-click on the key, I have the option to Edit the
trigger, disable or delete. Would any of these options work?

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

"Richard G. Harper" wrote:

> Have you checked for scheduled events that would cause this? How about
> program guide updates - did you configure Media Center to download these?
>
> --
> Richard G. Harper [MVP Shell/User]
> * NEW! Catch my blog ... http://msmvps.com/blogs/rgharper/
> * PLEASE post all messages and replies in the newsgroups
> * The Website - http://rgharper.mvps.org/
> * HELP us help YOU ... http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
>
>
> "M. Krantz" <> wrote in message
> news:EBA2828B-5B5D-44BE-A886-...
> > Hoping a Windows expert can help. Shortly after configuring Windows Media
> > Center to record live TV, my Vista PC is waking itself from sleep at
> > around
> > 6:50 a.m. I've checked the boards, but still the problem persists. So far
> > I've:
> >
> > 1. Made sure to tell Windows Media Center that I will download the guide
> > manually. I'd heard this process wakes computers up.
> >
> > 2. Checked powercfg -lastwake at the CMD prompt. It isn't very helpful,
> > just
> > says:
> > Wake History Count - 1
> > Wake History [0]
> > Wake Source Count = 0
> >
> > And that's it.
> >
> > Hoping someone out there could help! Thanks!
>
>

In researching this issue, I've found some strange behavior some might be
interested in with Windows Media Center.

So, I re-ran the TV connection setup routine to see if that would reset
Windows Media Center to not download the TV guide automatically. A couple of
interesting things happened:

1. The setup routine, unlike the first time I ran it, did not ask me whether
I wanted automatic TV guide downloads. It appears that once you answer this
as "yes" on the first run of the setup, it's hardwired in.

2. The setup routine appears to have created a new scheduled task for the
"MCupdate" program. MCupdate appears to be the task that causes the PC to
wake from sleep to download the TV guide. It reset it to 11 p.m. -- so this
morning, thankfully, the PC did not wake at 6:50.

You can find this task in Window's Task Scheduler under the
Microsoft>Windows>Media
Center key an entry called "mcupdate" with Status of "Ready" and a Trigger
time.

3. The Automatic Download options doesn't seem to work. From Windows Media
Center, I chose Tasks>Settings>General>Automatic
Download Options. From there, I checked the "manual Download" radio button
and clicked the Save option. But, there was no change to the mcupdate task
in the Task Scheduler.

If anyone is reading this, wondering if you might be able to answer this
questions:

1. Is it OK to right-click on the mcupdate in Window's Task Scheduler and
'Edit' the
trigger, 'disable' the key or 'delete' it. Would any of these options work?
Does it compromise Windows Media Center's stability?

2. Is there a way to completely reset the TV setup -- so that Windows Media
Center again asks if I would like to automatically download guides?

3. Why doesn't checking the "manual downloads" option in the Automatic
Download Options turn off the scheduled task?

Any help would be useful. Thanks!

My system doesn't wake the computer to do mcupdate.
Looking at the 'conditions' tab of that task my 'wake the computer to run
this task' is NOT set so it should NOT perform as yours is, perhaps you
should try setting it and then unsetting it (close the task scheduler in
between actions), sometimes such operations clear out stuck options.

Michael
Vista Home Premium, Dell XPS410 desktop

"M. Krantz" <> wrote in message
news:A5072EE9-0BD4-42AF-8DE5-...
> In researching this issue, I've found some strange behavior some might be
> interested in with Windows Media Center.
>
> So, I re-ran the TV connection setup routine to see if that would reset
> Windows Media Center to not download the TV guide automatically. A couple
> of
> interesting things happened:
>
> 1. The setup routine, unlike the first time I ran it, did not ask me
> whether
> I wanted automatic TV guide downloads. It appears that once you answer
> this
> as "yes" on the first run of the setup, it's hardwired in.
>
> 2. The setup routine appears to have created a new scheduled task for the
> "MCupdate" program. MCupdate appears to be the task that causes the PC to
> wake from sleep to download the TV guide. It reset it to 11 p.m. -- so
> this
> morning, thankfully, the PC did not wake at 6:50.
>
> You can find this task in Window's Task Scheduler under the
> Microsoft>Windows>Media
> Center key an entry called "mcupdate" with Status of "Ready" and a Trigger
> time.
>
> 3. The Automatic Download options doesn't seem to work. From Windows Media
> Center, I chose Tasks>Settings>General>Automatic
> Download Options. From there, I checked the "manual Download" radio button
> and clicked the Save option. But, there was no change to the mcupdate task
> in the Task Scheduler.
>
> If anyone is reading this, wondering if you might be able to answer this
> questions:
>
> 1. Is it OK to right-click on the mcupdate in Window's Task Scheduler and
> 'Edit' the
> trigger, 'disable' the key or 'delete' it. Would any of these options
> work?
> Does it compromise Windows Media Center's stability?
>
> 2. Is there a way to completely reset the TV setup -- so that Windows
> Media
> Center again asks if I would like to automatically download guides?
>
> 3. Why doesn't checking the "manual downloads" option in the Automatic
> Download Options turn off the scheduled task?
>
> Any help would be useful. Thanks!
>

The "wake the computer to run this task" is not checked on my PC, either.
Hmmm.

What does mcupdate do, anyway. Is this the routine that downloads the guide?

I quote from MS web site
This scheduled task runs the %windir%\ehome\mcupdate command to check for
Windows Media Center updates.

Wasn't that a big help.
Any way, when I run it manually I do not see the alert that media center is
downloading a new TV schedule. (I cannot remember exactly how that is
worded). So I think is just checking to see if there are updates to the
program, not to the TV listings.

You might be barking up the wrong program. If some other program caused the
computer to awake, and the time for mcupdate to run had passed, then because
the computer was already awake, the mcupdate program would run, even though
it was not what actually woke up the computer.

Michael
Vista Home Premium

"M. Krantz" <> wrote in message
news:0ABA6A8B-2BF0-4E80-A620-...
> The "wake the computer to run this task" is not checked on my PC, either.
> Hmmm.
>
> What does mcupdate do, anyway. Is this the routine that downloads the
> guide?
>