Application Support Statement

As this application is freeware, no personal support is provided.

Understanding How Moffitor Works

Moffitor is about as simple an application as you will find. When clicked, it issues a request to Windows to shut off the monitor. Once the request is sent, Moffitor exits and is no longer running.

When Moffitor is not functioning correctly, it is almost assuredly due to another process interfering. Moffitor will make no effort to override the behavior of other applications/processes.

How to Debug a Malfunction

There are two theoretical types of malfunction.

The Monitor Turns Back On

If the monitor turns back on after shutting off, one of the following is occuring:

You've inadvertently triggered a wake by moving the mouse. You can see if this is the case by carefully clicking Moffitor and taking your hand off the mouse vertically, so as not to give the computer further input after the monitor is put to sleep. If this is the case, you can change the "Allow this device to wake the computer." setting in the Power Management tab of the mouse's Device Manager profile. By changing this setting, you'll need to use your keyboard to wake the computer.

A hardware component or software application is reawakening the computer. This can be frustrating to debug. To determine hardware/driver vs. software, you can temporarilly disable all start up applications (get a screencap to remember which were enabled) and reboot, running Moffitor off of a fresh boot. If the behavior continues, it is likely hardware. In this case you would need to find which hardware is responsible by tracing powercfg.

The Monitor Never Turns Off

Other software is preventing the computer from shutting off the monitor. In many cases, you do not want the monitor to sleep; if you're watching a movie, for example. The potential to lock the monitor on is available to other applications. You can temporarilly disable all start up applications using Task Manager (capture a screencap to remember which were enabled) and reboot, running Moffitor after a fresh boot. If that works, the next step is to enable startup programs in batches, trying to find the app responsible.

I've Tried Everything, and I'm Stuck

There are more industrial strength monitor tools out there. Programs that run at elevated status, and can tell windows to ignore other programs and hardware are available. One such program is nircmd.