v1.9.0

What's Changed

• Added setup modes: keep-awake only, remote access watchdog, and full unattended auto-login.
• Made setup, restore, uninstall, and compliance checks mode-aware.
• Improved power keep-alive by using Windows Power Requests with a legacy fallback.
• Hardened setup failure handling so the app does not report stale completed setup state.
• Improved startup task user binding, uninstall cleanup, and release update behavior.

Verification

• Release build passed with warnings as errors.
• Formatting verification passed.
• Diff whitespace check passed.

SHA256 (KeepAliveService.exe): D4D26890F9B388F3D089AC400A837CAB739088A8188B6B3EE59E5B0C892A4A75

v1.8.0

What's Changed

Bug Fixes

• Lid close settings now actually apply — switched from unreliable alias-based powercfg commands to GUID-based commands, and added powercfg /setactive to flush changes to the kernel. The lid close setting is now verified after applying.
• Tray icon reliably appears after restart — the app now waits for explorer.exe shell readiness before showing the tray icon, and handles the TaskbarCreated message to survive explorer restarts.
• Startup task correctly bound to auto-logon user — the scheduled task now uses PowerShell Register-ScheduledTask with a user-specific logon trigger and Interactive logon type, supporting Microsoft accounts, local accounts, and domain accounts.
• Startup task auto-repair — on admin GUI launch, the app validates the startup task and silently recreates it if misconfigured.
• Startup task is now a critical setup step — setup will report failure if the startup task cannot be created.

Files Changed

• PowerConfigurator.cs — GUID-based commands, /setactive, lid verification
• NetworkConfigurator.cs — /setactive after WiFi/USB power settings
• RestoreManager.cs — GUID-based restore, /setactive
• StartupTaskManager.cs — PowerShell-based task creation, user binding, validation
• MainWindow.xaml.cs — shell wait, TaskbarCreated hook, auto-repair
• NativeMethods.cs — RegisterWindowMessage P/Invoke
• SetupManager.cs — startup task as critical step

Full Changelog: v1.7.1...v1.8.0

v1.7.1

What's Changed

• Fix startup rendering: Window no longer flashes with broken/dark rendering when launched via --tray-startup during Windows login
• Show setup status: Setup tab now displays whether setup has been completed and when, so users know if they need to run it again
• Separate Restore & Uninstall: Restore reverts all Windows settings but keeps the program installed; Uninstall removes everything including the program itself

Install

Download KeepAliveService.exe below and run it as Administrator. It will self-install to C:\Program Files\WindowsKeepAlive\.

v1.7.0

What's New

Separate Restore and Uninstall

• Restore (--restore) — reverts all Windows settings (power, registry, network), stops/removes the service and startup task, but leaves the program installed so you can re-run setup later
• Uninstall (--uninstall) — does a full restore and removes the program completely (desktop shortcut, installed EXE, program data)

The GUI now has separate Restore (yellow) and Uninstall (red) buttons.

Previous (v1.6.0)

• Expert code review fixes: deadlock prevention, thread safety, locale-independent power setting parsing, DPAPI credential protection, file locking for settings, and shared utility consolidation

v1.6.0

What's Changed

Critical Bug Fixes

• Fix process output deadlocks — ServiceInstaller and StartupTaskManager now use async stdout/stderr reads before WaitForExit, preventing deadlocks when pipe buffers fill
• Fix unread redirected streams — RestoreManager.RunPowerCfg no longer redirects streams it doesn't read
• Fix legal notice backup/restore — backup and restore now use the correct registry hive (Policies\System) matching where setup actually clears the values, with migration for existing backups
• Fix service buttons stuck disabled — service Start/Stop/Restart buttons no longer remain permanently disabled after any operation completes
• Fix locale-dependent powercfg parsing — compliance checks and settings backup now use position-based hex parsing instead of matching English labels, working correctly on all Windows language packs

Robustness Improvements

• Cross-process settings safety — AppSettings.Save() uses a named mutex with proper timeout handling; writes are skipped (not corrupted) if the lock can't be acquired
• Corrupt settings preservation — corrupt settings.json is preserved as .corrupt for diagnostics instead of being silently replaced with defaults
• DPAPI password protection — saved encrypted passwords are no longer erased when DPAPI decryption fails (e.g., different user profile context)
• Console redirection race fix — timer-triggered update checks are skipped while compliance checks hold Console.Out/Error redirected
• Public desktop shortcut — desktop shortcut now uses the all-users desktop, preventing mismatch when setup runs under a different admin account
• Startup task user warning — warns when the process user doesn't match the configured autologon user

Code Quality

• Extracted shared ConsoleOutput helper (deduplicated from 6 files)
• Extracted shared IsVirtualAdapter method (deduplicated from 3 files)
• Extracted shared IsRunningAsAdmin and FormatBytes utilities
• All configurator failure counters are now [ThreadStatic] for thread safety
• Added using statements for disposable StringWriter/TeeTextWriter
• New Helpers.ParsePowerCfgSettingValues for locale-independent power setting parsing

Full Changelog: v1.5.2...v1.6.0

v1.5.2

Bug Fixes

• Fix startup crash (NullReferenceException) — XAML event handlers firing during InitializeComponent() before timers were initialized. Suppression flag now set before XAML parsing, with null guard as defense-in-depth.
• Fix IOException when exe is locked by running service — Auto-update now stops the service before overwriting the exe, then retries.

If you are on v1.5.0 or v1.5.1, this update will be applied automatically within 24 hours, or you can click "Check Now" on the Updates tab.

v1.5.1

Bug fixes

• Eliminate double UAC prompt — first-run install no longer triggers two elevation prompts; the relaunch from Program Files now carries admin elevation forward
• Fix output writer thread safety — Write(string) now holds the lock for the entire string instead of per-character, preventing interleaved output from concurrent threads
• Cap UI output buffer — FlowDocument Inlines are trimmed to 5,000 lines (oldest removed first), preventing memory growth during long GUI sessions
• Flush output on shutdown — the output writer is flushed before restoring console, so the last line of output is no longer lost
• Guard dispatcher shutdown — ActivateFromExternalLaunch now checks HasShutdownStarted before dispatching, consistent with the output writer guard
• Dispose tray icon handle — the extracted GDI icon is now properly disposed on cleanup
• Preserve update status text — running setup, compliance checks, or service operations no longer resets the "Update available" status strip text
• Fix Close() during update — window close after applying an update now happens after RunOperationAsync returns, avoiding access to disposed controls

Upgrading

Existing installations will auto-update via the built-in updater. No manual steps required.

v1.5.0

What's new

WPF GUI migration

• Replaced the WinForms interface with a modern WPF GUI using the WPF-UI library (Fluent Design, Mica backdrop)
• Clean light theme with tabbed layout: Setup, Status, Updates, Logs
• Single-file EXE now bundles all WPF native dependencies (~162 MB)

Bug fixes

• Session shutdown: the window close handler no longer blocks OS shutdown or logoff — only user-initiated close minimizes to tray
• Dispatcher teardown: output writer guards against dispatcher shutdown, preventing intermittent errors during app exit
• Accessibility: status-bar Copy/Clear controls are now keyboard-focusable buttons instead of mouse-only text blocks
• Gitignore: publish artifacts and scratch files are now excluded from source control

Upgrading

Existing installations will auto-update via the built-in updater. No manual steps required.

v1.4.0

What's New

Auto Light/Dark Theming

• Detects Windows theme preference and applies matching palette
• Live theme switching — changes instantly when you toggle Windows dark mode
• Centralized palette with button hierarchy (primary, secondary, destructive)

Settings Backup & Restore

• Full settings backup captured before setup modifies the system
• --restore CLI command to roll back all changes (registry, service, startup task, shortcuts)
• Write-once backup guard prevents accidental overwrite
• Restore preserves backup on partial failure for retry

Startup Task Auto-Start

• Scheduled task launches the app minimized to tray on user login
• --tray-startup flag for silent tray-only launch
• Task managed via schtasks.exe under the interactive user principal

Audit Hardening

• Compliance watchdog correctly skips startup task check (runs as SYSTEM, can't create user-session tasks)
• Service uninstall returns success/failure for reliable restore verification
• AppSettings merge pattern prevents stale-object backup overwrite
• Backup gated on admin check to prevent write-once poisoning from non-admin runs

v1.3.0

What's New in v1.3.0

Compliance Watchdog

• Automatic drift remediation: The service now checks all settings every 6 hours and automatically re-applies any that have drifted (e.g., after Windows Update)
• Rate-limited to 3 consecutive failures before entering 24-hour cooldown

Power Compliance Fixes

• Fixed false failures for lid close action and console lock on Win10 Home builds where powercfg /query doesn't return AC/DC index lines — now reports WARN instead of FAIL
• Removed /setactive SCHEME_CURRENT calls that could reset custom power values on some builds
• Replaced custom lid close action checker with the robust generic power setting checker

Network Adapter Filter

• Expanded virtual adapter exclusion to skip WAN Miniport, TAP, Kernel Debug, Bluetooth, and Microsoft protocol adapters
• Only real physical adapters (WiFi, Ethernet) now have power management disabled

Auto-Fix Preflight Blockers

• LegalNoticeText/LegalNoticeCaption automatically cleared if set (previously hard-blocked setup)
• DontDisplayLastUserName automatically set to 0 if enabled
• Credential Guard automatically disabled via registry if detected
• All blockers also checked and fixed by the compliance watchdog

Auto-Login Hardening

• ForceAutoLogon re-applied by watchdog to survive Windows Update resets
• AutoLogonCount automatically removed if set (prevents auto-login from expiring)

GUI Improvements

• First-run "Setup not completed" indicator on Status tab
• State-aware service Start/Stop/Restart buttons (disabled when not applicable)
• Tooltips on all interactive controls
• Uninstall button visually distinct (red text)
• Password visibility toggle
• Color-coded compliance status (green/yellow/red)
• Status tab auto-rechecks compliance on every visit (with 30s debounce)
• Consistent dark theme across all output boxes
• "Last checked" timestamp on Updates tab (new)
• Startup update check now logged in output (new)