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?

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Windows update

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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
    2009-10-03T02:37:34+00:00

    Not to say you don't know what your talking about.... but you don't know what your talking about Bradley Shaner... Some times you need to go "Balanced" to get work done. How or why? Simple. With power saving, it will lower your wirless card power out put, making you have to get closer to a wirless station, while high prormance steals to much for to much gain. This could be said for the same thing on screen brightness and cpu speeds. Really this just comes down to  preference and a way the user can set it up for him or her self as they like...

    I don't think you can delete the default planes, just change them, even then they are still in the background when you click the "back to default plans" button.

    Not sure if w7 can do this but make a text doc, then add the mask .bat to it could be a simple way to do it...

    PowerSavingMod.bat

    the cmd command

    PerformanceMod.bat

    the cmd command

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  2. Anonymous
    2009-10-05T19:28:59+00:00

    So what do I do with that? Edit the Registry? Use powercfg?

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  3. Anonymous
    2009-10-05T19:56:11+00:00

    So what do I do with that? Edit the Registry? Use powercfg?

    You were saying someone should do something. I thought I would show you what you can do. You could install the AIK and use utilities to make an 'answer file' and modify the power icon flyout with XML code shown there. Running setup with the answer file would install all the default options you chose. Default behavior is not that. If it were that much in demand, I imagine you could make a tidy sum selling the answer file.


    Rating posts helps other usersMark L. Ferguson MS-MVP

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  4. Anonymous
    2009-10-09T01:10:33+00:00

    is there an RTM WAIK available for 7 yet?

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