If you don’t touch your keyboard or mouse for a certain amount of time, then Windows shuts down for the purposes of security and energy conservation.
Of course, all of them require you to log back on again in order regain access to what you were doing.
So, with that said, here are 3 ways Windows shuts down:
#1: Lock
When your screen is locked, it doesn’t power down unlike the other two ways. Also, it only displays the logon screen or the screensaver of your choice. As you might understand, this doesn’t save power but is merely a security option.
Since the default one minute is too short, you can check the ‘On resume’ option while setting the ‘Wait’ setting to the number of minutes you desire.
#2: Hibernation
A hibernating PC doesn’t use power at all. In this mode, Windows will move everything from RAM to the hard drive and then shut off the PC completely. In the situation where you reboot, everything will be loaded back into RAM, and you can use the PC normally.
In order to change the settings, you’ll have to open the ‘Change Advanced Power Settings’ link, expand the ‘Hibernate’ section and ‘Hibernate after’ and set the minutes as a result.
#3: Sleep
In ‘Sleep’ mode, Windows will go into a low-energy mode which requires very little energy. As soon as you hit the ‘Power’ button, it will wake up immediately, ask you for your password and take you back to where you were before the computer went to sleep.
In both Windows 7 & 8, type ‘sleep’ and select the option ‘Change when the computer sleeps’. Once the dialog box is up, you can change the settings for ‘Sleep’ whether it’s on ‘Battery’ or ‘Plugged in’.