How to Change Automatic Maintenance Settings in Windows 10


Maintenance activity refers to an application or process that helps maintain the health and performance of a Windows PC. Maintenance includes keeping Windows and applications up-to-date, checking security, and running scans for malware. Windows Automatic Management (WAM) is a set of enhancements to the Task Scheduler API you can use to link your applications into the Windows maintenance schedule. Specifically, WAM allows you to add activities that require regular scheduling, but do not have exact time requirements. Instead, WAM relies on the operating system to choose the appropriate time to activate the task throughout the day. The system chooses those times based on minimal impact to the user, PC performance, and energy efficiency.

How Scheduled Maintenance Works

Windows Automatic Maintenance minimizes impact to the PC by scheduling maintenance only when the PC is on and idle. By default, the system performs maintenance daily, starting at 3 AM. (Note that the user may re-schedule when the maintenance occurs.) This daily session is limited to a maximum duration of 1 hour per attempt. If the user is actively using the machine, the system defers maintenance until a later time. The system also suspends any executing maintenance task if the user returns to the PC.

The system restarts a suspended maintenance task during the next idle period; however, the system will not suspend any task marked as critical. Instead, the system allows a critical task to complete, regardless of user action.

Due to the nature of scheduling, some scheduled tasks may not finish: perhaps there are too many scheduled events to fit in the 1 hour maintenance window, or maybe the computer was simply not turned on. In such cases, you can define a task with a deadline. A deadline is defined as a recurring time frame in which the system must successfully perform the task at least once.

If a task misses a deadline, the maintenance scheduler will continue to attempt to execute the task during the maintenance window. Further, the scheduler will not limit itself to the regular 1 hour time limit. Instead, the scheduler extends the duration of the maintenance window in order to complete the delayed task. If the system still cannot complete the task, the Action Center displays a warning notification to the user. The user can then manually initiate the maintenance action from the Action center.

Once the system completes the task (even with a failure error code), the attempt is considered successful. After a successful attempt, the scheduler resets to the regular maintenance schedule, and will attempt the task during the next period.

For more information about "Automatic Maintenance", see: Automatic Maintenance - Windows applications | Microsoft Docs


This tutorial will show you how to change the Automatic Maintenance settings for what time to run the daily maintenance tasks, and if to allow the scheduled maintenance to wake the computer to run at the scheduled time in Windows 10.

You must be signed in as an administrator to be able to do the steps in this tutorial.

Contents

• Option One: Change Automatic Maintenance Settings in Control Panel
• Option Two: Manually Change "Run maintenance tasks daily at" Time in Registry Editor
• Option Three: Manually Turn On or Off "Allow scheduled maintenance to wake up my computer at the scheduled time" using a REG file

OPTION ONE

Change Automatic Maintenance Settings in Control Panel

1 Open the Control Panel (icons view), click/tap on the Security and Maintenance icon.

2 In Security and Maintenance, expand Maintenance, and click/tap on the Change maintenance settings link under Automatic Maintenance. (see screenshot below)

3 Select the time that you would like to have Automatic Maintenance run daily at, then check (on - default) or uncheck (off) Allow scheduled maintenance to wake up my computer at the scheduled time. When finished, click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)

By default, Automatic Maintenance is set to wake up your computer and run maintenance tasks at 2 AM.

4 If prompted by UAC, then click/tap on OK.

5 When finished, you can close Security and Maintenance if you like.

OPTION TWO

Manually Change "Run maintenance tasks daily at" Time in Registry Editor

1 Press the Win+R keys to open Run, type regedit into Run, and click/tap on OK to open Registry Editor.

2 Navigate to the key below in the left pane of Registry Editor. (see screenshot below)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Schedule\Maintenance

3 In the right pane of the Maintenance key, double click/tap on the Activation Boundary string value to modify it. (see screenshot above)

If you do not have a Activation Boundary string value, right click on an empty area in the right pane of the Maintenance key, click/tap on New, click/tap on String Value, type Activation Boundary for the name, and press Enter.

4 Enter a data value from the table below for the time you want, and click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)

Time	Date Value
12:00 AM	2001-01-01T00:00:00
1:00 AM	2001-01-01T01:00:00
2:00 AM - default	2001-01-01T02:00:00
3:00 AM	2001-01-01T03:00:00
4:00 AM	2001-01-01T04:00:00
5:00 AM	2001-01-01T05:00:00
6:00 AM	2001-01-01T06:00:00
7:00 AM	2001-01-01T07:00:00
8:00 AM	2001-01-01T08:00:00
9:00 AM	2001-01-01T09:00:00
10:00 AM	2001-01-01T10:00:00
11:00 AM	2001-01-01T11:00:00
12:00 PM	2001-01-01T12:00:00
1:00 PM	2001-01-01T13:00:00
2:00 PM	2001-01-01T14:00:00
3:00 PM	2001-01-01T15:00:00
4:00 PM	2001-01-01T16:00:00
5:00 PM	2001-01-01T17:00:00
6:00 PM	2001-01-01T18:00:00
7:00 PM	2001-01-01T19:00:00
8:00 PM	2001-01-01T20:00:00
9:00 PM	2001-01-01T21:00:00
10:00 PM	2001-01-01T22:00:00
11:00 PM	2001-01-01T23:00:00

5 You can now close Registry Editor if you like.

OPTION THREE

Manually Turn On or Off "Allow scheduled maintenance to wake up my computer at the scheduled time" using a REG file

The downloadable .reg files below will add and modify the DWORD value in the registry keys below.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Schedule\Maintenance

WakeUp DWORD

0 = Off
1 = On

1 Do step 2 (on) or step 3 (off) below for what you would like to do.

 2. To Turn On "Allow scheduled maintenance to wake up my computer at the scheduled time"

This is the default setting.

A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.

Turn_ON_Allow_scheduled-maintenance_to_wake_up_my_computer_at_scheduled_time.reg

Download

 3. To Turn Off "Allow scheduled maintenance to wake up my computer at the scheduled time"

A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.

Turn_OFF_Allow_scheduled-maintenance_to_wake_up_my_computer_at_scheduled_time.reg

Download

4 Save the .reg file to your desktop.

5 Double click/tap on the downloaded .reg file to merge it.

6 When prompted, click/tap on Run, Yes (UAC), Yes, and OK to approve the merge.

7 You could now delete the downloaded .reg file if you like.

That's it,
Shawn Brink

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