Battery problems on Windows 7 machines are not caused by the operating system. That's the position of Stephen Sinofsky, head of the Windows division, in a long posting Monday on the Windows engineering blog.
"At this time," he wrote, "we have no reason to believe there is any issue related to Windows 7 in this context." He acknowledged reports in the press and in forums about faulty battery warnings and batteries failing. "In every case we have been able to identify," Sinofsky added, "the battery being reported on was in fact in need of recommended replacement."
'Accurately Detected a Failing Battery'
Sinofsky said that the company has been contacting customers who report issues in forums, monitoring customer  -service communications, keeping in touch with PC makers, and utilizing opt-in, anonymous "telemetry in Windows 7" to keep track of the situation. In all cases investigated, he wrote, "Windows 7 has simply accurately detected a failing battery."
One factor Sinofsky emphasized is that there is a new battery notification in Windows 7 not available in Vista or Windows XP. The notification, with a battery meter icon and the message "Consider replacing your battery," appears when the battery is performing at 40 percent of its designated capacity. He noted that some customers upgrading a PC to Windows 7 did not know the battery was degrading until 7 offered this new level of notification.
He pointed out that PC batteries, through the hardware and the BIOS firmware, offer several read-only fields of information about the battery, including manufacturer, serial number, design capacity, and last full charge capacity. Sinofsky added that this information "is read-only and there is no way for Windows 7 or any other OS to write, set or configure battery status information."
'The Answer Is RIGHT THERE!'
But user complaints continue to populate the Microsoft support forum, where the issue has been reported in a variety of configurations and conditions since June.
On Monday evening, a commenter named DanLee81 posted Sinofsky's assertion about the read-only fields, and then insisted that "the answer is RIGHT THERE!" The user contended that the design capacity value "with all problematic batteries is an unpopulated field," and that, instead of that missing variable, the OS should be reading the total capacity variable, for which every battery provides a value. "That is why the false alarm is appearing," he wrote.
Avi Greengart, an analyst with industry research firm Current Analysis, noted that he has had no battery problems with his two Windows 7 netbooks. In general, he said, Microsoft appears "to be stepping up to the plate" on this issue by acknowledging it and trying to track down any issues.
He noted that, unlike Apple, Microsoft only controls the OS, not the hardware, and if there is a problem, "it's possible they're only part of the problem, not the entire problem."
Anonymous:
Posted: 2010-03-12 @ 1:55am PT
I've considered the possibility that there is more involved than meets the eye when it comes to battery issues.Especially if your running an unvalidated copy of any ver. of windows. A friend of mine owns a puter shop and buys surplus laptops from companies that upgrade. They usually retain the harddrives for security reasons. Most of which are destroyed. That means a new drive and install of windows. Even tho machines have oem sticker and a coa key. Windows will flag it as invalid because of serial no. mismatch. Especially if you used pro ver. on a system that had "Home" ver from the factory. Just something that has been talked about by my friend.
Anonymous:
Posted: 2010-02-10 @ 7:47am PT
In October I bought a HP Laptop with a free Windows 7 upgrade, which I did. The battery with the OEM installed Vista lasted at least 3.5 hours. Now with Seven it will drain in just under a hour. Microsoft can say whatever they want, but the truth is that Windows 7 has battery management issues. They should responsibly address them.
Anonymous:
Posted: 2010-02-09 @ 5:05pm PT
My HP laptop is only 5 months old. Prior to installing my free Windows 7 upgrade I had no problems with battery life. Immediately following the installation of Windows 7, my laptop battery will drain extremely fast and will sometimes go from a full charge to a nearly drained charge in a second. It is irresponsible for Microsoft to not consider Windows 7 the cause of the problem. The fact that so many people are complaining about this issue should hold some weight. Obviously Microsoft is trying to dodge a bullet here because they cannot find the programming error in their operating system that is causing this issue.
Anonymous:
Posted: 2010-02-09 @ 10:04am PT
I think Seven dun nit!
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