MSAS and STANDBY mode

[JOE]

I just re-installed MSAS, and ran an initial full
system scan, which completed after 30 minutes. I was
looking through its run report, etc, when suddenly my XP
triggered STANDBY mode. I have it set for 5 minutes, and
MSAS was actually scanning during that time.

Perhaps I don't understand completely the idea of
Standby and Hibernate trigger mechanisms - I assumed the
PC had to be "idle" for that time (5 minutes). Instead,
even as I was clicking away with the mouse, through
various sections of MSAS, the PC still went through the
motions of powering down my PC.

This doesn't occur in ANY other cases - NORTON runs
for hours, past STANDBY time, and I have never had the PC
do that whenever I was "actively using the screen".

Could there be some unique setting that MSAS is using
(or forgot to re-establish), to "allow but defer"
STANDBY until it is finished, and force STANDBY to
complete it's task even though the user is actively
working in the account?

Joe

 

[Bill Sanderson]

Thanks for the observation, Joe--this may indeed be a bug. It certainly
sounds like one on the surface.

 

[JOE]

O.K. Bill,

Don't expect to hear from many Microsoft users about
this STANDBY bug(?). After 6 months chasing why my XP no
longer could enter Standby (or Hibernate), I finally
discovered the "cause".

WIN-XP installs its (MS) WINDOWS MESSENGER (not to be
confused with ...SERVICE), by default - thank you very
much. It also CANNOT be uninstalled. The bad news is that
WINDOWS MESSENGER (module msmsgs.exe), "pings" the
internet every 2 minutes, on the 2 minutes - so
the "account" is NEVER totally idle, because of this busy
TSR. So the PC can NEVER power down into Standby or
Hibernate. The only way it will, is if the user logs out
of all accounts (even HOT SWITCHED background ones) -
whose account user has EVER so much as "touched" the
WINDOWS MESSENGER task bar icon. That's all it takes to
infect an account, and have it de-activate STANDBY,
whenever that account is NOT fully logged out.

There are a lot of users on the Microsoft Forums,
wondering why their XP PC's run forever (overnight
without staff for example), without STANDBY, even though
their Power Settings ae correct. This is the cause. A
SYSADMIN "MUST" decide between allowing ANY chat type
Windows Messengers to run (even just once, out of
curiosity, and not even registered) - or forfeit the
ability of the PC to enter a low power state when nobody
is actually using the PC.

The fix, of course, is to have WINDOWS MESSENGERS (
from Microsoft,MSN, AOL, NORTON, etc.), ALL co-operate
with the Standby/Hibernate POWER settings. Rather than
uslessly pinging the chat functions at least every 2
minutes, or more often - if there is more than just one
vendor brand of Instant Messenger running on the system.

Bottom line - you will need to be on a system where
WINDOWS INSTANT MESSENGER has not (yet) BEEN "activated"
i.e. the PC does actually manage to enter STANDBY -
before you can test my findings. On my PC I killed WM by
simply "renaming msmsgs.exe" to "msmsgs.exeNUISANCE", so
it can't be found. Another simpller way might be to
uncheck msmsgs.exe in system initialization (MSCONFIG) -
but then, someboy might find that "Admin mistake" some
day, and re-activate it there. Renaming it, however, is
as good as "uninstalling Windows Messenger" permanently.


Joe

 

[Steve Wechsler [MVP]]

Messenger ***CAN*** be uninstalled from Add/Remove Programs, Windows
Components. If you want to keep it just don't have Messenger load on
startup. I have Messenger on 5 XP systems and have no issues with
Standby. Go to Options via Tools to disable it from starting when
Windows does.

Steve Wechsler (akaMowGreen)

MS-MVP 2004-2005
Windows Server
Windows - Security

 

[JOE]

Hi Steve,

Looks like your XP-SR2 experiences with
Microsoft "Windows Instant Messenger" are radically
different from mine. My ASUS P4C800E system would not go
into Standby (and therefore, also not Hibernate), until
I eliminated Instant Messenger from ruining XP's "Idle
Time" every 2 minutes.

The reason why I thought Instant Messenger could not
be removed, is based on the following Microsoft Article,
which I found by doing a desktop search in XP HELP, using
string: "WINDOWS INSTANT MESSENGER". Item #9 in the
TECHNICAL ARTICLES listed at the bottom of the search,
pointed to:

*******************
Help & Support Center: Windows XP Profesional - ARTICLE
ID: 302089 NOV. 11, 2004

"HOW TO PREVENT WINDOWS MESSENGER FROM RUNNING ON A
WINDOWS XP-BASED COMPUTER"

SUMMARY
This article describes how to prevent Windows Messenger
from running. By default, Windows XP Professional and
Windows XP Home Edition install Windows Messenger. The
user interface does not let you remove or uninstall
Windows Messenger.

When you install Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1), Windows
adds a new feature that is named "Set Program Access and
Defaults" to the Add or Remove Programs tool in Control
Panel. You can use this feature to remove Windows
Messenger from the Start menu, from the desktop, or from
other locations. For additional information, click the
following article number to view the article in the
Microsoft Knowledge Base:
****************

Evidently you can remove the "entries" from the
START PROGRAMS and DESKTOP etc., but you CAN NOT easily
uninstall it.

The article goes into a somewhat complex method to
modify the REGISTRY to fully remove it. My method was
simpler, and less error prone, while being easily
reversible.

At some point I must have used the REMOVE PROGRAMS
to get rid of Instant Messenger - (to get rid of the
possibility of rogue pop up spam entering via MESSENGER
SERVICE) - since it is no longer in my START Programs
list, or in the ADD/REMOVE lists, nor is it in the
OUTLOOK EXPRESS Tools->Options (General) for that app to
use. So I effectively removed it at some time, since I
have absolutely no use for it. However, that apparently
was NOT sufficient, since "Msmsgs.exe kept firing up
every 2 minutes" anyway (according to log entries) -
resulting in loss of STANDBY/HIBERNATE functioning, until
I renamed that module. Now my XP PRO works just fine.

I also read an article at Symantec, that Norton
Instant Messenger, (and I suppose all the others),
safely tack themselves into Windows Messenger, if it is
found already running on the system. I suppose, even if
I get rid of Windows Messenger, one of the other vendor
versions might ruin my XP anyway. Don't know - hope not.
Will find out when I install Norton Internet Security
2005, which just started using it (wasn't in 2004, I
believe).

I wonder if, by chance, you are being confused by
the "account session" monitor screen entering Power
Saving mode, rather than PC powerdown (which happens in
STANDBY or HIBERNATE). The two circumstances - Monitor
Power Saving and STANDBY modes - look similar, but you
would have to listen to the PC to notice the absence of
fan noise, in true Standby mode. Of course, in my
experience, enabling Hibernate in the power schemes,
would be definite proof of whether Instant Messenger lets
the PC ever become idle, since if it can do so - there
will be an obvious "Resuming from Hibernation" screen
message, upon system restart.

The best way to test this is to set the Standby or
Hibernate time quite short - I used 5 minutes. In fact,
even when I had it set for such a short periods, with
Instant Messenger still active, the PC would go into
STANDBY, at random times, sometimes many hours later, or
even a day later, or never. After I renamed the file,
the STANDBY & HIBERNATE have been working like
clockwork, on-time, for over a week now. That's no
coincidence.

So, even if Instant Messenger doesn't "load on
Startup", one of it's system modules does, if ANY user
account "touched" an Instant Messenger icon, and
simple closed the IM popup window, without registering
for IM service. It's that finnicky, and I can repeatedly
test this, with identical results in each new account I
create on my system.

But if your experience is differnt from my
observations, I'm glad for that. There may be differences
in XP systems configurations, that may have caused
others, like myself, to lose Standby/Hibernate
functionality. Somwething worth looking into, in any case.

Joe