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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Microsoft

Switch power management profiles with Hotkeys

Power Management ShortcutsFinding the proper balance in your power management scheme can be challenging; sometimes you need all the horsepower you can get, while other times battery life is your top priority. If you find yourself regularly navigating to your power management settings as your priorities change, you might benefit from being able to create hotkeys that will instantly switch you to a different power management profile.

A poster at How To Geek outlines how to create a shortcut that will switch your system to a specific power management profile. Once you have the shortcuts you need set up, you can then either set a hotkey in the shortcut itself, or use your favorite hotkey utility to launch each shortcut based on your preferred hotkey.

[Via Lifehacker]

Filed under: OS Updates, Windows, Microsoft

Microsoft promises faster boot, longer battery life from Windows 7

Windows 7
Sure, Windows 7 will have a less annoying User Account Control system, a nifty new taskbar, and the ability to burn ISO files. But what have you done for laptop users late, Microsoft? As it turns out, quite a bit.

Windows 7 has been designed to start up and shut down more quickly than Windows Vista, which comes in handy if you happen to be doing some light work on your PC while waiting at an airport and you need to slam your notebook shut and run for the gate once you realize you missed the final boarding call.

Microsoft is accomplishing the quicker boot speed by reducing the number of services that launch at startup and loading drivers in parallel instead of sequentially. Windows 7 also includes improved window management that will let you load more windows without running out of memory.

And there are also a bunch of improvements to power management that will result in an 11% or better battery boost. These include better management of wireless radios (like WiFi and Bluetooth), and some tweaks that will let the CPU run slower or spend more time idling.

Windows Vista already has a number of features that help you get more life out of a laptop battery than you'd get with Windows XP, including advanced power management settings that let you fine tune your screen brightness, CPU speed and other settings. It looks like Windows 7 takes things a few steps further.

You can watch three videos demonstrating Windows 7's speedier boot time, improved window management, and reduced battery draw at Engadget.

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