Originally Posted by townsbg

It could be that the program has some kind of weird bug in it that causes it to have trouble to resume from standby so why assume that it is the OS?

As I stated, I could totally confirm my finding by experimenting with a program or script that is completely invisible and silent after it is launched, but I can't think of such a program off hand. Why don't you write me one, a simple loop and wait. I am convinced that it is the total lack of activity that is triggering the OS to return to standby a few minutes after scheduled automatic wake from standby. The other reason that I am convinced of this is because the app, WatchHDTV, behaves perfectly as expected when the sleep state is Hibernate instead of Standby. The fact that WXP 'forgets' to turn one's display on at a scheduled wake from Standby also lends credence.

I'll likely continue a few experiments but I think the situation is clear.