Two of the biggest battery hogs in Windows Vista are the flashy Aero user interface and the gadget sidebar. So it stands to reason that if you want to get the most out of your laptop's battery life you'll disable these features when running on battery power.

Vista Battery Saver does more than save your battery. It saves you time. Every time you unplug your computer, it can automatically switch off Aero and your sidebar. Plug the power cable back in and they'll reappear like magic.

Tamir Khason has just released a new beta version of Vista Battery Saver with bug fixes and one new feature: the ability to automatically switch between power management plans when you plug/unplug your laptop.

[via jkOnTheRun]