How to enable Away Mode in Windows 7

     Windows Away Mode similar to Sleep and Hibernate Mode, it turns off the power of most equipment to save energy and can be fast woken up to work. But when the computer is in Away Mode, the background tasks such as downloading,recording processes are actually continue to work. 

     Away Mode is designed specifically for scenarios where the user is finished interacting with the computer, but the system must remain powered on to record a TV broadcast or share media files with other systems and devices. For example, the system might be providing access to Windows Media Center Extender or other consumer electronics devices and therefore must remain available even though the user is not interacting with the system at the local console. Away Mode enables a living room media PC to respond to a user’s power-on to power-off requests in the same manner as a television or set-top box that might appear turned off, but actually continues to work.

To enable Away Mode in Windows7 :

Following steps make the Sleep button in Start menu work with the Away Modefunctionality.

Step 1: Go to Start -> search ‘regedit’ (without the quotes). In the Registry Editor, navigate to:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Power. In right, right click to create a new DWORD32bit Value called AwayModeEnabledand set its value to 1.

Step 2 : Close the Registry Editor, and go to Start -> Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound -> click "change when the computer sleep" under Power Options -> Change advanced power settings.
Set hard disk never (set the value to 0) to turn off, set wireless adapter power saving mode to Maximum Performance, and never sleep after turn off the display monitor.

Now, click Start -> Sleep and your computer actually goes into Away Mode.