See all 3 power plans on system tray

Anonymous
2009-10-01T03:29:27+00:00

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?

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Anonymous
2009-10-03T17:27:31+00:00

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

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  1. Anonymous
    2011-03-04T15:11:40+00:00

    I just renamed the power plan and changed the settings.

    Type this in cmd.exe

    powercfg -changename "a1841308-3541-4fab-bc81-f71556f20b4a" "Balanced"

    powercfg -changename "381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e" "Power Saver"

    now what I see is the power saver option and High performance. Balanced is hidden and that's what I want because I don't need it.

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  2. Anonymous
    2011-04-08T22:03:09+00:00

    Or instead of hacking the registry or playing around with xml files you could go and download this;

    http://powerschemeswitcher.codeplex.com/

    It's a very simple app that gives you a new icon on your taskbar. Right clicking on it gives you a list of all your power plans. You can also configure it to auto change plans depending the power supply type and battery percentage.

    Now why couldn't MS have something like this?

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  3. Anonymous
    2012-05-13T16:59:58+00:00

    I had the same problem, and I didn't want to install 3rd party programs, so I did the following:

    1. I wrote a batch file to switch to power saver mode if high performance mode is active, and to switch to high performance if not.
    2. I made a folder in a location where it wouldn't bother me and put the batch file there.
    3. Since the default batch file icon is ugly, I made a shortcut to the batch file and put it in a folder that I made inside the one created in step 2 (for step 4 the folder should only contain the shortcut to work as intended), and changed the icon of the shortcut.
    4. Then I made a custom toolbar that linked to the folder that only contained the link to the batch file, and disabled text and title on it (you can do it when the taskbar is unlocked, r-click, uncheck options, and lock it again after you disable the text and title).

    That way there was just a clickable icon next to the tray that tells me which mode is active when I click it, hence going from 4 clicks in standard approach beyond 2 clicks with the desired approach for most users to 1 click in this solution. :P

    Here is the code of the batch file.

    @echo off

    FOR /F "tokens=*" %%A IN ('powercfg -getactivescheme') DO SET SCHEME=%%A

    set NSCHEME=Power Scheme GUID: 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c (High performance)

    if "%SCHEME%"=="%NSCHEME%" powercfg -setactive a1841308-3541-4fab-bc81-f71556f20b4a & echo Power saver activated. & ping -n 3 127.0.0.1 > nul

    if not "%SCHEME%"=="%NSCHEME%" powercfg -setactive 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c & echo High performance activated. & ping -n 3 127.0.0.1 > nul

    The ping command is only there to force the window to stay open for a few seconds before disappearing, so that you can actually read, what mode was activated. You can remove it if you don't want the ugly console window to stay open for so long. Also you could surely make those variables shorter, but all the additional options were too incomprehensive for me, so I just left it like that.

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-02-19T22:45:47+00:00

    I totally agree.  I rarely, if ever, use balanced.  Go into a meeting, work remote, Power Saver.  Back at my desk and plugged in, don't care about the little extra energy use, give me high performance.  Microsoft should use a few extra pixels to show all three plan.  Where are the user experience testers on this one?

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