InstantGo, also known as InstantOn or Modern Standby (formerly Connected Standby), is a Microsoft specification for

Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012, made available for download via Microsoft ...

(and later) hardware and software that aims to bring smartphone-type power management capabilities to the PC platform, as well as increasing physical security.

Description

The specification describes a Microsoft proprietary standard for Windows 8 software and hardware that developers and hardware vendors can optionally comply with to enable devices to be turned on and off instantly. It also allows the operating system to continue performing background tasks, such as updating content from apps, when a device is not being used. Devices must be able to turn on in less than 500 milliseconds. The hardware requirements extend to battery life, in that systems must not drain more than 5% of battery capacity while idle over a 16-hour period. It requires the following: * A firmware flag indicating support for the standard * The boot volume must not use a

hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...

* Support for NDIS 6.30 by all network devices * Passive cooling on standby * Trusted Platform Module 2.0 * CPU, chipset and BIOS support for S0ix "Low Power S0 Idle" power state * All peripheral devices and drivers must support D3cold On Windows 8.1, supporting InstantGo and having a

Trusted Platform Module A Trusted Platform Module (TPM) is a secure cryptoprocessor that implements the ISO/IEC 11889 standard. Common uses are verifying that the boot process starts from a trusted combination of hardware and software and storing disk encryption keys. ...

(TPM) 2.0 chip will allow the device to use a passive device encryption system. Compliant platforms also enables full BitLocker Device encryption. A background service that encrypts the whole system which can be found in 'Windows Security'>'Device Encryption' page in Windows 10 and 11.

Limitations

Systems that support this specification are incapable of booting legacy

BIOS In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is a type of firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization d ...

operating systems. PCs with Modern Standby also cannot manually enter the Sleep power state and OEMs will often block S3 power state at the firmware level. In addition to that, Power Options from Control Panel have less advanced power plan settings.

Issues

Microsoft's Modern Standby has experienced bugs that cause battery drain issues while the laptop is supposedly suspended. This has prevented some reviewers from recommending Windows laptops.Fix Battery Drain and Laptop Heats Up During Sleep Mode by Tweaking Modern Standby Policies
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Description

Limitations

Issues

See also

References

Further reading