StayAwake

StayAwake puts a monitor-like icon in the system tray and, if that icon is green, then it means that StayAwake is preventing the screensaver from running and also preventing the operating system from going to sleep or hibernation. If the StayAwake icon isn’t green, then it means that the screensaver is allowed to run and Windows can enter sleep/hibernation after a certain period of inactivity.

StayAwake 1.0 was released in August 2012. MichaÅ‚ LeÅ›niewski, the developer who created the StayAwake application, hasn’t released any updates since then. On the upside, StayAwake is written in C and has no dependencies, meaning that it does not require .NET Framework to run.

While StayAwake is running, you will see a monitor-like icon in the system tray. Double clicking this tray icon will enable/disable the screensaver and prevent/allow the operating system to go to sleep. When the tray icon is green, the screensaver is disabled and Windows can’t go to sleep. When the tray icon isn’t green, the screensaver is allowed to run and Windows can go to sleep.

Right click StayAwake’s tray icon, select Settings from the context menu, and you’ll get to access the following options: toggle StayAwake mode with a hotkey, display a balloon on mode toggle, remember state between launches, display a balloon at startup if StayAwake is active, use alternative mode, start StayAwake on system startup.

StayAwake is free software released under a GNU General Public License (GPL). I’m sorry to say, by StayAwake is useless to a guy like myself, someone who has already disabled the screensaver and manually changed to power options so that Windows never goes to sleep.

StayAwake quietly sits in the system tray and if its icon is green, then it means that it’s preventing the screensaver from launching and preventing Window from going to sleep.