This is from the Windows ITpro magazine. It may help you.
At my company, a Windows XP Professional Edition user in a nondomain network
was having a problem with a program that takes several hours to run to
completion. During execution, the program would stop for no apparent reason.
I traced the trouble to the hard disks spinning down after about an hour of
keyboard and mouse inactivity.
To correct this problem, I went into the Control Panel Power Options applet
and selected the Power Schemes tab. XP Pro was defaulting to a power scheme
called Portable/Laptop, which wasn't suitable for the user's needs. I clicked
the Power schemes drop-down list. There was only one other option,
Home/Office Desk, which also wasn't suitable. So, I decided to change the
attributes for the Portable/Laptop Power scheme to the following:
Turn off monitor: After 15 mins
Turn off hard disks: Never
System standby: Never
System hibernate: Never
After I clicked Apply, I received the error message, Power Policy Manager
unable to set policy. Indicates two revision levels are incompatible. This
error is documented in the Microsoft article "Error Message: Power Policy
Manager Unable to Set Policy. Indicates Two Revision Levels Are Incompatible"
(
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=302713). That article basically says you
can't overwrite an existing scheme name, but you can save your new scheme
under a new name by using the Save As option.
Armed with this knowledge, I entered the new settings, saved the scheme as
Custom Scheme, and exited. I later noticed that the drives were still
spinning down, so I went back into the Power Options applet. I saw that
Portable/Laptop was again selected in the Power schemes drop-down list.
Custom Scheme wasn't even listed.
I wondered whether this problem was an XP user issue. I logged off as the
user, then logged back on as Local Administrator. On the Power Schemes tab, I
saw not two but six default schemes available. I reviewed this behavior with
a Microsoft Product Support Services (PSS) representative, who had a couple
of good troubleshooting suggestions. The first suggestion was to try the
Msconfig utility to see whether a loaded program was causing the problem. The
second suggestion was to try to export the
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Controls
Folder\PowerCfg registry subkey from a known good XP installation and import
it into the problematic PC. I took a look at that subkey on both the
problematic PC and a good PC. I noticed that both PCs had the six OEM default
profiles as well as several other schemes that had been created but never
displayed in the Power schemes drop-down list on the Power Schemes tab. I
also saw that the PowerCfg subkey had a ProcessorsPolicies subkey that I
didn't want to become familiar with the hard way.
The PSS representative's reference to the PowerCfg subkey and a little
digging helped me come up with a solution. First, I accessed the
HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\PowerCfg subkey. I noticed that it had all
six default power schemes with no undesired extraneous schemes. It also had a
GlobalPowerPolicy subkey but not the ProcessorsPolicies subkey . I decided to
export the HKEY_USERS PowerCfg subkey and put it in place of the
HKEY_CURRENT_USER PowerCfg subkey because the HKEY_USERS PowerCfg subkey had
all six default schemes, one of which is the desired Always On scheme. Here
are the steps to make this switch:
Export HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\PowerCfg and save it as
HKUsersPowerCfg.reg.
Open HKUsersPowerCfg.reg in Notepad. Search for all occurrences of
[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel and replace them with
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel.
Export the existing HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\PowerCfg subkey so that
you have a backup if needed.
Delete the existing HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\PowerCfg subkey.
Import the freshly edited HKUsersPowerCfg.reg subkey.
The user now has all six default power schemes available. Interestingly, the
Save As option in the Power Schemes tab now actually works.
I noticed this same power scheme problem on another XP Pro PC that was
upgraded from Windows 98. Perhaps the problem originates during the upgrade.
If your users have been experiencing similar problems, you can use the XP
PowerCfg Fix.txt file to help make the necessary registry changes. (Use it at
your own risk.) You can download this file from the Windows IT Pro Web site.
Replace the .txt extension with the .reg extension
TeddyBear said:
Recently, when I went to modify my power settings, somehow they had all been
deleted, save the "home office" and "portable/laptop" which I never use
anyway. When I tried to add additional power options, I name it and save it,
but when I open up power options the next time, it is not there. Now, when I
change my settings, it apears to save/apply them but actually reverts to one
setting which I am unable to modify. However, I never get error messages, and
my changes "appear" to have taken, when in fact they haven't. Any idea
what's going on and how to remedy it?
