Do Windows/Automatic updates happen when a PC is sleeping/standby?

Question

Mostly interested in doing it on some Win7 laptops, a lot of people seem to believe its not possible. However I can't find any definitive Microsoft documents detailing it either way:

1. This old documentation (Server 2003) says its not supported
2. This technet article details from May 2008 (& speaking about Vista) says 'Note that when your system is in sleep mode, it can still wake up at specified times to download and install updates'
3. kb2799178 detailed that some Win8 PC's (mostly desktops) did support this capability via a setting in Control Panel->Action Center (& a 'Regular Maintenance' task in scheduled tasks)

Background: I have 20 Win7 laptops (Dell Latitude E5550) in a cart & I'd like updates to happen off-hours so users aren't bothered during work hours. We have a GPO that says to install them automatically & I believe it may make them restart

Solution

Yep, you can configure the "Enabling Windows Update Power Management to automatically wake up the system to install scheduled updates" GPO setting. It requires Vista or higher:

Allowing scheduled wakeup will need to be supported and enabled in your BIOS too.

Comments

[william]

Do you consider waking from standby to update to be updating while in standby?

[gregg]

Yes. I understand it will probably wake it from standby/sleep to DO the updates (assuming that can happen when laptop lid shut). I am just not sure if it HAS the built-in capability/configuration to do so (wake a sleeping PC for updates)

[william]

It would be easy to use the task scheduler to wake the computer and update then. There's even a checkbox to wake the computer from sleep, so you can set that in your update task.

[gregg]

That is true, however I am wanting affirmation if this capability is baked-in to Windows/Automatic Updates (where it does it for you without tweaking task scheduler or anything like it)

[gregg]

If you could please note & append a snapshot of the setting showing it needs Vista+. Based on your link I'm assuming Windows doesn't wake PC for updates by default? On a non-domain PC, I'm assuming there is no Control Panel setting for this, only applying this via gpedit.msc? As for the setting in your BIOS, that's the S1-5 states you are speaking of, right? Thanks alot for this, if you could do/confirm those things I will give the bounty to you!

[Robert Overmyer]

I have a home lab I can check this on, hopefully tonight. I'll let you know. Your assumption is correct about waking up for Windows Update; by default this does not occur.

[gregg]

I added the snapshot as I had it available. I'm curious if you can confirm the S(leep) states & my other questions?

[Robert Overmyer]

My windows 10 upgrade messed up my home lab, so I can't test it for you at the moment. I'm not sure you need anything special in the BIOS after reading into it some more. Couldn't find a control panel setting, just local GPO and a registry setting: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windo‌​wsUpdate\AU[AUPowerM‌​anagement] You can enable it by running "reg add HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU /v AUPowerManagement /t REG_DWORD /d 1" in a batch file or in the command prompt.

[Robert Overmyer]

And while I've never once seen a sleeping PC wake to apply updates, I've found a few threads where people are claiming it happens. Maybe this policy only applies to hibernation.

[Jean Monet]

@JoseManuelGomezAlvarez completely. This just happened to me last night on a high-en laptop (Win 10). It was on sleep for the night, kept in a bag without ventilation and I only realized late in the morning after I kept hearing fans, that it was the laptop, probably on all morning or even all night like this. WHAT THE HELL are people at Microsoft thinking when they enabled this by default. JESUS. I was even certain I had disabled this crap already. Really really annoying.