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Windows 7 is better than Vista in so many ways, but it's actually a lot worse in some others. Take, for example, choosing power plans from the system tray.
In Windows Vista, you could click on the battery meter and choose between the 3 plans: High Performance, Balanced, and Power Saver.
Now, for some idiotic reason, Microsft decided to limit our choices to only TWO plans from the system tray: your current plan + Balanced (if balanced is selected I believe it defaults to Power Saver for the 2nd one). To change it to the 3rd one I have to actually click on "More Power Options" and then select the plan.
Microsoft is requiring you to take extra steps for doing something that was easier before. I thought Windows 7's mantra was "do things faster" (i.e. Jumplists, Aero Peek, Accelerators, etc.) Who was the moron who made this decision, and how can I get my Vista-style Power tray back?
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
Um maybe if you read my original post (or if use Windows 7 itself), Balanced is ALWAYS shown, even if it wasn't your 'old' plan. So you can't flip-flop between Power Saver and High Performance, which is what I want.
What if I deleted the Balanced power plan? Is there a way to delete the default plans?
Yes, there is a way.
FlyoutAutoPowerScheme: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749282(WS.10).aspx
Rating posts helps other usersMark L. Ferguson MS-MVP
One thing I've always wondered was whether the Power Plans only change brightness, Aero, and Sleep/Display timers, or whether they do more than that. The reason I've always avoided just changing the name of the power plan and its settings was because I thought the power plans also did something on the backend like for example for High Performance they would overclock the CPU, and vice versa for Power Saver. I know this sound silly, but can anyone clarify whether this is true or not please? Thanks.
Right glkoz3 - But as I'm sure others would agree, you don't need 3, as long as you can get "Balanced" out of the loop.
These instructions do that.
"Nobody uses Balanced. This is by design." - Me
"Now you have the 2 settings you want." The title says: "See all 3 power plans"
Since the real problem is the need to switch between all three power modes. Having just two will not help, as Windows remembers the last two anyway.
I wish I never upgraded from Vista, to be honest. With the new service packs, it was really great. Windows 7 gives me a bit of f*****g hard times with these random changes.
This is easy enough to get exactly the way you want it without having to wait for Microsoft to fix.
In registry on a Windows 7 system -
Computer>HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT>Local Settings>MuiCache>3E>52C64B7E
Just search for "Balanced" and rename it to whatever you want
So if you think the Balanced Option is useless like most people outside of Redmond, WA - Then rename it to "Power Saver" or whatever you like.
Then go into the Power Options and adjust all the power settings (including Advanced) for the newly labeled setting.
Now you have the 2 settings you want, (1)Power Saver, and (2) Performance that appear in the System Tray for quick switching on the fly.
EDIT: When you look at the registry string available in that Hive, it appears as if when you rename "Balanced" you might just be able to change the string value where it lists "@%SystemRoot%\system32\powrprof.dll,-15" from "-15" to "-11" which is the original "Power Saver" setting and then bypass the need to then go adjust the settings in Power Options.
I haven't tested this but appears to potentially be an option. Someone who has time give it a go and report back with the results.
If this is the fix, the I could run a script in my Domain that fixes this key for all my Win 7 Laptops and then I wouldn't have to wait for Microsoft or any of their incompetent certified moderators to tell us what isn't possible.
If anything should be changed in Win 7, it would be to bring back the GUI search capabilities that existed with XP or Vista. To remove the Search GUI options is completely ignorant. What are you saving me kb's Microsoft??? Good grief some people have no understanding of design demographics. Think about my mom here, let her search for files occasionally without having to know *, <, >, syntax.
