I'm afraid I made an error in my post explaining how I implemented automatic hibernation. I incorrectly gave the name of the dll file as powerprof.dll instead of powrprof.dll I am therefore correcting that in this post

If possible I would like admin to delete the original post. Sorry for any confusion.

See also the related post by Didactylos that will allow the scheduled command to be somewhat simplified.

Corrected version:

OK, this is how I have mine set up to hibernate automatically at a set time.

This assumes the machine is running XP-Pro. I guess it may be similar in XP-Home but I have no experience of that platform. You need to be logged on with administrator rights and you need to have a password set. If necessary, go to Control Panel, User Accounts to set a password for the required account.

1. First of all you have to ensure hibernation mode is enabled. Go to Control Panel, Power Options, and under the Hibernate tab make sure you have ticked the Enable Hibernation check-box.

2. Set up a scheduled event for hibernating. Go to All Programmes, Accessories, System Tools, Scheduled Tasks, and double-click Add Scheduled Task and click Next to start the new task wizard. Select Command Prompt from the drop-down list and click Next to continue. Check the Daily radio-button (assuming you want the task to run each day) and click Next. Now choose the time you want the task to be executed and click Next. This brings up a window with your username and you must type in your password and confirm it in the second entry, then click Next. In the next window check the box labelled "Open advanced properties for this task when I click Finish", and click Finish.

3. You will now be presented with a window showing your Command Prompt advanced settings. The command in the Run box will be "C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe". Change this to "C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe /k rundll32 powrprof.dll, SetSuspendState". Click OK. When the username and password window appears again enter and confirm your password and click OK to complete the schedule. Close the Scheduled Tasks window.

4. At the chosen time each day your PC will hibernate, saving the status of all running programmes to the hard drive. When you start it up again it will resume from the precise point it left off.

5. IMPORTANT: There is a space character before /k, before rundll32, before powrprof and before SetSuspendState. The use of upper case and lower case characters in SetSuspendState is important. Don't forget the comma after powrprof.dll

6. NOTE: If you do not enter the correct password during the schedule setup process the task will not run, even though it appears in the list of tasks. In this case you need to edit the task (double-click the task in the task list when you go to All Programmes, Accessories, System Tools, Scheduled Tasks), make some minor change and then change it back again, and then you will need to enter your password again when attempting to save the changes.

7. NOTE 2: Whether the workstation will hibernate or stand-by depends on the value of the "When I press the sleep button on my computer" setting found within the Power Options section of the Control Panel, and also on the power functionality available to your computer (ACPI). On my own machines there is no "When I press the sleep button on my computer" option, and the scheduled task causes a hibernation as desired.

Of course, having it hibernate automatically is one thing, but you may also want it to start up automatically as well. To do this, you need to go into the BIOS and choose the "Wake up on Real-Time-Clock" or similar option, and set the wake-up time required. Alternatively, if there is no such option in your particular BIOS you may be able to shoose a "Start automatically when power is applied" function and then use a time-switch in the power lead to turn it on at the required time.

Whichever method you choose you will want your computer to log on automatically and start running straight away. You can achieve this as follows:

1. First you must have a password set for the username you wish to logon automatically.

2. From the Start button, choose Run and enter the command "control userpasswords2" and click OK. Note the space between the two words.

3. Select the username you want to logon automatically and clear the check-box "Users must enter a username and password to use this computer". Click OK.

4. In the next window you must enter your password and confirm it, then click OK.

That's it! From now on, whenever the computer boots up it will automatically log on as the chosen user.

I believe you can run the UD agent as a service rather than an application and the agent will then run as soon as the computer powers up and before any user logs on, so that would remove the need for an automatic logon. I have no experience of this, although it has been referred to elsewhere in these forums.

David.

There is a way to log on and sign-out instantly....a few settings and this script:

%windir%\system32\rundll32.exe user32.dll, LockWorkStation

Instructions on Techrepublic, which i cant access, like many other sites that used code that MS 'fixed' with their forced 'anti-eolas' patch. More and more sites are getting crippled as they run WAU on their machines. My favorite online paper was off the air for 14 days almost, or you just get the page header..thats it. Firefox most of the time will render them on instances, where IE fails completely.

Didactylos,

I did try to delete but the system said I can not delete a post once it has a reply.

David.

Semantics are important, Sekerob. The difference is nobody else can log on while a computer is locked. It is not at all the same as logging out.