Anyone good with task scheduler? Help finishing off sleep task

So I'm making a task to put my pc to sleep. It remains to be determined what it actually considers to be "idle" but ideally, after a predetermined point in time it should sleep my pc so long as im not using it (or hopefully someone else isnt to stream something from plex)

here is my conditions


I wish you could set a longer "wait for idle" than 2 hours but since you cant, here's my hangup.

9/10 it will likely work as it sits. But those instances where I stay up super late playing an mmo, or my wife stays up late watching a movie will happen. I dont want it to fail in those cirumstances.

I see Start the task if computer is idle for: 10 mins - as i will sleep your pc after 10 mins of idle time
I see Wait for idle for: 1 hour - as I will wait for 10 mins of idle time for 1 hour before ending the task aka giving up.

My confusion stems from the following two checkboxes and how they work in relation to what the settings tab offers.

Stop if the computer ceases to be idle: is pretty self explanatory you would think. However it seems redundant considering the task wont run if the computer hasnt been idle anyways based on the first condition. What am i missing?

Restart if idle state resumes: seems redundant again. The Wait for idle: lasts for 1 hour. Does the restart if the idle state resumes restart the entire task from the beginning? Aka begin looping it as soon as the pc becomes idle again?

The reason im curious about these settings apart from them having a fundamental effect on how i want this to function, is also the settings tab.

I'm unsure if I need these guys based on how the Conditions tab actually works


Anyone able to sort me out?

What seems to work for me is setting the trigger to run when the computer is idle and just disabling the conditions.

Why not just use Windows' built-in Power & sleep settings?



Refer to the last two items.

margrave55 said:

Why not just use Windows' built-in Power & sleep settings?



Refer to the last two items.

I do use windows built in sleep settings in addition, but now its more of a backup. Rarely works as something is always running thats keeping it awake.

Mostly because I only want the sleep functionality at night and past a certain time. Its been hit or miss as something always seems to find its way into powercfg -requests whereas the task ignores that and it will go to sleep if your not actively using it.

tested it last night and it went to sleep and woke as intended when specified with the tasks. I'm just trying to understand the nuances between the conditions and settings now so i can tailor it and use it going forward in a completely ideal fashion.

I tend to export my tasks and use them on other pcs etc, so its nice to be able to grasp the conditions relative to the application so to speak.