Computer wont go to sleep?

Question

I have a media computer with Windows Vista Home Premium. When I activate media sharing, the computer refuses to go to sleep after x-minutes of idling. If I turn of the media sharing the computer will go to sleep by itself. Is it supposed to behave this way when media sharing is activated?

Answer 1

That is by design.

When you enable media sharing you are instructing your machine to always be on. Therefore the ability to enter sleep is disabled, as the machine should always be available for others to access the shared media. However if you do want it to go to sleep follow these steps:

• Start the Power Options Control Panel applet (Start, Control Panel, Power Settings).
• Select the "Change plan settings" option for the current power plan.
• On the settings dialog box, click the "Change advanced power settings."
• Scroll down to the "Multimedia settings" option and expand the "When sharing media."
• Change the setting to "Allow the computer to sleep.
• Click OK, then close all open dialog boxes.
• The "Allow the computer to enter Away Mode" is the setting Media Center enables.

The away mode functionality makes the computer appear to be off to the user but actually keeps the system running.

From here

Answer 2

See this tutorial and make sure that the "Multimedia Settings" for "When sharing media" is set to "Set to Allow the computer to sleep".