Well, it’s been a long running saga but things are actually getting better. I’ve recently found a new power management option, that governs how Vista behaves when "sharing media". I’m taking this to mean any share on the PC, not just Windows Media style automagic sharing.

Setting it to "allow the computer to sleep" (see below) has dramatically helped in that Vista now goes back to sleep when it’s supposed to. So, my media centre PC now wakes up to record a show and then immediately goes back to sleep once it’s finished. BRILLIANT!

I still have the little problem of it waking up at 4am every day, but we’ll see if this new change helps at all. If not, then I have a little trick up my sleeve…