Customized Power Options keeps changing back to default

Anonymous
2009-12-11T04:55:38+00:00

Hi all,

I am running Windows Vista currently.

Have been trying to customised my own Power Options...

I changed the parameters & saved under another name.

Somehow after a few days or after reboot... when I turn on my laptop, it will turn back to the default settings & my customised plan is NOT there anymore! Only the 3 default ones (Balanced, Power Saver, High performance) is present.

It has been a frustating 2mths... doing it all over again & again...

Cant seem to find any solutions... pls help! =P

Regards,

Soya Ng

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Accessibility

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Anonymous
2009-12-12T03:58:57+00:00

Hi SoyaNg

Thank you for using Microsoft Answers Forums!

You can follow these steps to Customize your Power Options.

How to create a power plan

To create a power plan, follow these steps:

  1. Click Start, type Power Options in the Start Search box, and then click Power Options in the Programs list.
  2. On the Select a power plan page, click Create a power plan in the task pane. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type your password, or click Continue.
  3. On the Create a power plan page, select the plan that is closest to the type of plan that you want to create. For example, if you want the plan to conserve energy, select the Power saver plan.
  4. In the Plan name box, type a name for the plan, and then click Next.
  5. In Change settings, select the display settings and the sleep settings that you want the computer to use when it is running on battery power and when it is plugged in, and then click Create.

If you are using a mobile PC, your plan appears under Plans on the battery meter. If you are using a desktop computer, your plan appears under Preferred plans.

Note The plan that you created automatically becomes the active plan. To put a different plan into effect, select that plan on the Power Options page.

How to customize a power plan

To customize a power plan, follow these steps:

  1. Click Start, type Power Options in the Start Search box, and then click Power Options in the Programs list.
  2. Click Change plan settings under the plan.
  3. On the Change settings for the plan page, select the display settings and the sleep settings that you want your computer to use, or click Change advanced power settings to change additional settings.
  4. Click OK, or click Save changes to save the changes.

Make sure that the power plan that you want the computer to use is selected on the Power Options page.

How to use the Powercfg.exe tool to set the active power plan

You can use the Powercfg.exe tool to control power settings and to configure computers to use the hibernate feature or the sleep feature. The Powercfg.exe tool is installed with Windows Vista and with Windows 7.

To set the active power plan by using the Powercfg.exe tool, follow these steps:

  1. Click Start, click All Programs, and then click Accessories.
  2. Right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as Administrator. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type your password, or click Continue.
  3. Type the following command, and then press ENTER:

Powercfg -setactiveScheme_GUID

NoteScheme_GUID represents the scheme GUID. To determine the GUID for all existing power schemes, type Powercfg /List at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.

How to use the registry to set the preferred power plan

Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

322756  (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322756/ ) How to back up and restore the registry in Windows

To change the preferred power plan, follow these steps:

  1. Click Start, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then click regedit.exe in the Programs list. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type your password, or click Continue.
  2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\ControlPanel\NameSpace{025A5937-A6BE-4686-A844-36FE4BEC8B6D}

  1. Right-click PreferredPlan, and then click Modify.
  2. In the Value data box, enter one of the following:
    • Type 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e to use the Balanced plan.
    • Type a1841308-3541-4fab-bc81-f71556f20b4a to use the Power saver plan.
    • Type 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c to use the High performance plan.

You can also type the power scheme GUID for a custom power plan that you have created. To determine the GUID for all existing power schemes, type Powercfg /List at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.

  1. Click OK, and then exit Registry Editor.

You can refer to this link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/935799

Hope this information was helpful.

Let me know if this worked.

All the best!

Thanks and Regards,

Uma R   

  • Microsoft Support.

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-08-17T14:51:02+00:00

    I have that problem.....only started 2 builds ago....I have tried all that I can see on the net and here all to no avail....does anyone have a sure fired fix?

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-05-28T17:20:27+00:00

    This issue is still present in Windows 10.

    I change the power plan setting, save it and some time later I check and they have changed!

    As this thread is some years old, you would think they would have fixed it by now.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-05-16T23:24:59+00:00

    You just have to find out how to create a script, like a batch (.bat) file, and make windows run that batch file every 10 seconds, 10 minutes, 2 hours, on boot, or whatever the appropriate interval is. You shouldn't even read some random generic bullshite that some random guy copies and pasted everywhere, like "did U reboot????" or other microsoft replies.

    Just work around the system of flaws that prevents you from actually setting a variable. It's faster, more efficient, and look, there's only so many hours in the day. You can't reprogram windows for them. They already did something that is negatively affecting your experience. When Windows is doing something dumb on an interval basis, you just have to override it automatically each time. It's a patch. Unless you are being paid for fixing it, don't worry about it, especialy if the supposed microsoft helper is just pasting random stuff in lists with bolded phrases.

    By working around the problem, you will instantly permanently solve the problem, and if MS accidentally fixes it you don't even have to worry then - because re-executing the settings doesn't take much processor power at all)

    (Unless you are gaming - and I am not a gamer so I have no idea -but  in which case there might be a stutter when it executes the "set normal settings" command you have made. But you can also make a workaround for that, on the assumption that windows is set up to cause stuttering on applications when a thing is executed, and prevent it from doing so when certain things are open. It's probably like 40 hours of work to deal with it though.

    You might just want to reinstall windows and avoid installing drivers, and patch windows update so it does not ruin it for you, and so on. Ultimately if you can't win, you can't win. It might take forever to avoid all the errors and unexpected things, no matter what you do. In such a case, give up. Unless they are paying you, just override the dumb with the preferred settings. They won, you lost, in the long term. Don't flush your days down the drain trying to outsmart some ridiculous flaw or, more likely, systematic network of interconnected flaws, in windows. That's the golden rule. It should be the golden rule.

    In my case, I want to set my hard drive's power settings to ABC. Windows apparently reverts it to bad settings on a regular basis, about every 10 minutes. So I just set up a scheduled event to execute a command prompt string and set it to the correct setting, every 3 minutes. That pretty much solves the problem and took less time than it did to write this post (an dmuch less time than it would take to read and re-read the various copy and paste answers by some chatbot, as is the majority of the first page). 

    In sum, don't fix it. Work around it. Unless they are paying you. Which they aren't.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-04-12T01:15:35+00:00

    Uma R i used first thing that seemed to fix...using looong way rededit/way! I carefully entered the high performance power plan digits, and it was accepted, then I restarted win-7 x64bit to see if it had worked..YES!! i t worked, thanks rex

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