Is there a way to prevent windows from sleeping when sharing media on network?

I usually have my windows power plan on "Balanced". I run software that need other plans (My DAW, and few games) with a script that will change power plan to performance and then sets the PC back to Balanced when that program is closed.
I have a VR headset that I use to access media files, located in a shared folder on my PC. Often in middle of streaming, it stops working because my PC has gone to sleep, because I forgot to change power plan before using the headset. I wonder if there is a way to prevent windows from going to sleep when it's accessed by another device on the network and is streaming media by SMB shares.?
There is an option in power plans "Multimedia settings" that is supposed to do exactly what I want. This option : "When sharing media" can be set to: "Prevent idling to sleep". But it has no effect and the PC still goes to sleep.

FYI, I use a program called Don't sleep on any machine that I do not want to shutdown or sleep



I do this instead of managing all the different settings instead of windows itself.

RickyMoose said:

FYI, I use a program called Don't sleep on any machine that I do not want to shutdown or sleep

Don't Sleep 9.73 Prevent Shutdown, Stand By, Turn Off, Restart

Don't Sleep is a small portable Windows program to prevent system shutdown, Standby, Hibernate, Turn Off and Restart.

www.softwareok.com

I do this instead of managing all the different settings instead of windows itself.

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Thanks a lot for your reply. I also got this program. Again I will have to remember to run it each time I want to stream or have it always run! That's why I am looking for (if it exists) a setting in windows. For now every time I want to stream to my VR headset I change my power plan to one I created and have disabled sleep.

Have you tried this setting in your power plan? It works for me.

It is annoying, especially when I’m using Plex

There is an open source app called Coffee that will keep the PC awake if the network traffic is above a specified threshold. Once the network activity calms down, the PC will be allowed to sleep again.

pseymour said:

There is an open source app called Coffee that will keep the PC awake if the network traffic is above a specified threshold. Once the network activity calms down, the PC will be allowed to sleep again.

Coffee

Download Coffee for free. Coffee will keep your computer wide awake while your downloads or network transfers complete. Coffee prevents standby when your traffic speed on a selected network adapter is above the user configurable threshold.

sourceforge.net

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Thanks Mr Seymour

pseymour said:

Once the network activity calms down, the PC will be allowed to sleep again.

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That reminds me of when I was a kid and my parents used to hold loud Fondue parties, when the party was over I’d finally get to sleep.
One night (not bandcamp) the party was so loud from screaming I got up to see what was going on and everyone were in capes with hoods and had candles and there was what I assume was a tired person, laying on a stone slab in our lounge room. The 70’s were awesome.

antspants said:

It is annoying, especially when I’m using Plex

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Well this is not really a problem as it can be solved with a small script. I don't use plex but I use a similar app called emby. This is how I run my emby server. First I created a copy of balanced power profile and I set it to not go to sleep.

Then I made a bat file with this content:

@echo off
for /f "tokens=4 delims= " %%f in ('powercfg /getactivescheme') do (
set ACTIVE_SCHEME=%%f
)

powercfg /setactive 62a1340d-2a81-4ed5-9915-799c7a37315c
"D:\Emby\Emby\system\EmbyServer.exe"
powercfg /setactive %ACTIVE_SCHEME%


You simply replace the path to Emby with the path to plex and also put your own power profile id. As soon as you close plex the script will set your pc back to the original power profile.

I would simply turn off sleep mode (never sleep).



I am on Windows 7. Windows 10/11 has a similar setup.