by Prasanna Vignesh
25. April 2007 20:06
Quite a few people have written in asking me if it's possible to
turn off Aero when on battery power to save a few precious minutes of
battery life. While I dispute the claim that Aero drains the battery
life, there is now a utility that will automatically turn off Aero when
in battery mode so you can test it for yourself.
The Windows Vista Battery Saver utility will turn off Aero and/or
the Windows Sidebar when on battery, or only when battery life is low.
The author claims it saves 30% of your battery life, but the Windows Vista Blog says only 1-4%, so your mileage may vary.
Once installed, there's a small icon in the system tray that will bring up the following settings dialog:
If you are wondering why the screenshot is so blurry, it's because
the fonts on the dialog were actually blurry on my screen for some
reason. (no idea why).
Personally, this utility seems like it would be useful only for
using the "Deactivate when battery level is less then …" Once your
battery life is down to critical levels, it's probably helpful to turn
off anything that could cause extra processor cycles, and the sidebar
is a good candidate for that.
Download Windows Vista Battery Saver from Just Code
Note: For more Windows Vista Tips, Tricks & Tweaks.
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