How to set your computer to wake up for nightly Veeam Endpoint Backups

By default, the Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE backs your system when it can. A simple next/next/next default install chooses 12:30am for that daily backup. So if your computer is on at 12:30am, the "Veeam Endpoint Backup" Windows Service can trigger that backup.

What if your computer is set to sleep after a set period of inactivity, to save electricity at night?

It turns out to be pretty simple. When you go to use your system the next morning, the service will notice it missed the last backup, so it'll start the backup right then and there. Not a big deal, since it only takes a few minutes, and is set to lessen the impact on your CPU by default, if your actively using your system.

If you're like me though, you might be accustomed to Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials, where all computers that are getting backed up nightly automatically awake during the backup window you centrally configure, and do their daily backups. You might find yourself still hankering for that capability, set with a simple checkbox option, seen at right.

Well, it's only takes a couple of minutes to create a Windows Schedule Task job to do just that, waking your computer at a scheduled time, beginning and finishing the backup, then going right back to sleep again. Your system's screen won't turn on for such scheduled tasks, and if you set your BIOS to not beep with power state changes, a quiet PC shouldn't wake you when doing its thing at night.

I should add that if you dig into the Schedule tasks UI history, you may see errors about permissions when it goes to execute the file. Doesn't matter, since your goal was to get the computer to awake, there is no need to bring the UI to the foreground, since the service is already running that actually triggers the daily backup.

If this sort of tweak to the default backup strategy Veeam has chosen is of interest to you, here's the step-by-step.

How to set your computer to wake up for nightly Veeam Endpoint Backups

On Windows 8 or later, or Windows 2012 or later:

1. click "Start" button
2. type "Schedule" and select "Schedule tasks"
3. select "Task Scheduler Library"
4. at upper right in the Actions area, click "Create Basic Task..."
5. give it a name, such as "Veeam backups" and click "Next"
6. leave Trigger as is (Daily), click "Next"
7. set the time, you should go with the same time that the Veeam service is configured for, which is 12:30am by default
8. when asked "What action do you want the task to perform?" select "Start a program"
9. for "Program/script" use "Browse..." or just past the full path in:
10. C:\Program Files\Veeam\EndPoint Backup\Veeam.EndPoint.Backup.exe
11. click "Next"
12. select "Open the Properties dialog for this task when I click Finish"
13. click "Finish"
14. go to the "Conditions" tab, and turn on the "Wake the computer to run this task" checkbox (note that it's already set to only wake if on AC power)

Here's the TinkerTry video walk-through of this same procedure.