What exactly constitutes as "idle"? 1

[LPent]

If there is no user at the keyboard, but there is a program running which saves or reads from the hard disk (like defragmenting, backing up, downloading) does Vista see that as being idle or not?

In other words, is hard disk activity enough for Vista to NOT go into hibernation?

 

[linney]

Is this a forced Hibernation by the user, or a Hibernation instigated by Windows itself? A forced Hibernation should stop everything running and just Hibernate.

If any Process is using the CPU then it is not idle. In Task Manager, under the CPU Tab, there is a process called "System Idle Process", when the machine is idle that should be registering a reading of very close to 98 - 99, meaning that nothing else is running except for want of a better word, the feint heartbeat of Windows.

If any process is scheduled by a user, or started manually by a user, and are running then that would prevent automatic Hibernation. Some other programs are run by Windows at idle times (also) automatically, things like these are Defragmenter and Windows Defender.

To answer your question, Backups, Defrags, and Downloading would cause any automatically starting Hibernation not to start.