I'm reading about Rune Enchanting in SOTA: 64 page 126.

Seems to me that that the main purpose of these enchantments is for creating enchantments that are easier to enchant and cost less karma.
I've been looking at the Anchoring metamagic, and it annoys me that these foci are astrally active - always. That can create problems when running into astral barriers and wards.

My question is this: is an anchored focus with runic enchantment not astrally active when it is "not functioning" due to a geasa?

nobody knows...

or nobody cares?

Sorry, I'm in the process of a move. Won't have access to my SOTA:64 for months at least. Don't know why nobody else has answered your question.

Few people use Anchoring as it is written in MitS. The "always active" anchoring focus is one of the many flaws in using Anchoring. I think all that the geasa from Rune Enchanting would do is prevent you from anchoring a spell into the focus or prevent the focus from activating if the appropriate conditions aren't met, but I don't think the Rune Enchanting rules are really compatible with Anchoring Foci (and its sister, Sustaining Foci).

I'd say that it was always astrally active.

They put the "always active" bit in there to stop players from getting too carried away with anchored spells on themselves. It doesn't matter how powerful a bulletbarrier they have anchored, they either have to leave it behind on a run, or not enter any warded areas (where all the goods are).

If they could turn them on and off then it would totally unbalance the game play (for most games). As soon as a PC got money he could get a on/off bulletbarrier, invisiblilty, levitate, +3 all stat, magic item made for him.

That wouldn't be good.

But the whole point of anchoring, even as listed at times in MitS, is to have a spell that you can turn on and off (MitS p45), unlike a Sustaining focus. Only the rules don't support this at all in 3rd edition. There is a major disconnect from what it should do and what it actually does, and it ends up being one of the weakest (least bang-for-buck, Karma-wise) metamagics.

I might be remembering this wrong, but wasn't the intent supposed to be that you could turn off the effect of the spell (not levitating all the time) but that the spell was still "running" in the background (so to speak), so that it was still astrally active?