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I am examining a new Surface Book 2 and missing the battery time remaining estimation. On a Surface Pro 4 it behaves as expected and I try to check the differences.

If you google it, there are many opinions. Many user say it is missing since 1709 Update.

Obviously there are some (HP) Laptops that can bring back the information as an BIOS/UEFI option, so it seems to be an ACPI call? But the Book2 as well as SP4 have no settings in this scope.

Also the connected standby feature being disabled may bring back some behaviour.

I am currently checking this reg hive: Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power

And I am wondering about the meaning of the entries.

e.g. UserBatteryDischargeEstimator which is nearly impossible to find with google and it exists only on the SP4.

Are there any Surface Book 2 out there that show that estimated time, so a UEFI issue could be ruled out? Is it OS or Hardware related?

Any ideas or docs that may help with that issue? 3rd party apps and disabling modern/connected standby are not an option, as I want to understand the root cause why it works with the SPro4 but not with SBook2

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  • If you hover your mouse over the battery icon, it should show the time remaining. You may try the apps Battery Tile and BatteryBar. You may also try to disable connected standby by setting in the registry HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\CsEnabled to 0 and reboot.
    – harrymc
    Mar 14, 2018 at 20:27
  • hover over shows percentage only. 3rd party apps and disabling modern/connected standby are not an option. the SP4 of course has CsEnabled=1
    – Falco Alexander
    Mar 15, 2018 at 9:19
  • Try to set CsEnabled to zero and reboot.
    – harrymc
    Mar 15, 2018 at 9:22
  • this is not an option! see my comment above!
    – Falco Alexander
    Mar 15, 2018 at 9:24
  • 1
    You could examine the BIOS/UEFI for any related setting - you might get lucky.
    – harrymc
    Mar 15, 2018 at 11:25

7 Answers 7

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In the post Power meter missing remaining battery time, a Microsoft Forum Moderator answers :

Microsoft has removed this feature because the time left meter is not accurate. The time left is estimated depending on the current load on your PC, and time left changes when your close/open an app, adjust brightness, increase/decrease volume, etc.

This is born out by the large number of posts one can find on the Internet dealing with this same problem. Many users share this problem, but no solution was ever found.

I do agree with the above text, since I also have learned to mistrust the remaining battery time on my Windows tablet.

Why this change has not propagated to the SP4 is a mystery, but it is possible that because of some hardware differences Windows Update has decided that this particular update does not fit your device.

See this answer for seeing how complicated is the decision by Windows Update on which updates to install and in what order, to understand why not all updates arrive on all devices.

You will have to wait to see if the number of complaints will motivate Microsoft to return this feature. Microsoft is not known for going back on such decisions, and all that one can hope is that this was only an unintended side-effect that will be fixed in the future.

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  • sorry, this is by far not an answer to my questions. it's only guessing and unclear and no further information I already gooled a week ago and summarised in my original question.
    – Falco Alexander
    Mar 17, 2018 at 12:23
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    I have succeeded in finding an authoritative explanation by a Microsoft official that the missing estimate is by purpose so not a bug and cannot be fixed by you or me - and I think this is a good answer. The rest about why this didn't also happen on the SP4 is agreeably a guess, but I can't do better because I don't work at Microsoft; you may disregard this part. If you want a real fix, then go back to the previous version of Windows. On my Windows tablet I disabled Windows Update because I was tired of disappearing features, and you may do the same (as long as you stay security-conscious).
    – harrymc
    Mar 17, 2018 at 12:49
  • I beg your pardon, but many forum moderators from answers.* forums act like a bot and have no clue what they are writing... I can show you tons of examples asking to run sfc /scannow and waiting a miracle to happen.... and if taken that answer serious: Where did MS supposedly remove that feature? in Win10 or in Book2 UEFI? what about the Surface Laptop?.... I am not willing to spend more time in these obvious and wrong assumptions....
    – Falco Alexander
    Mar 17, 2018 at 15:56
  • You can find an explanation of the problem here, not by a moderator, but you say that the solution of disabling Connected Standby does not work anymore (have you waited long enough?). You have the other option of giving up on Microsoft and using an app such as Battery Tile or BatteryBar. I consider that this is the maximum I can do for you, so have a nice day.
    – harrymc
    Mar 17, 2018 at 16:42
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    Congratulations ! Upvoted, although I didn't try it. The number of the upvotes will tell in the future whether it worked for other people.
    – harrymc
    Mar 28, 2018 at 14:28
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As strongly suspected and concluded in the Q and comments:

after adding:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power]
"EnergyEstimationDisabled"=dword:00000000

and optionally deleting the keys

UserBatteryDischargeEstimator 

EnergyEstimationEnabled

the missing remaining time estimation is finally back after a reboot!

edit:

semi annual windows updates are obviously reverting these changes. You have to reapply the changes after 1803 to get back you battery time estimation!

enter image description here

enter image description here

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It is known that updating to either creators or fall creators update causes this problem. My 13.5 inch surface book (2015) had this issue after 1709 but after a clean install of Windows 10 1709 from an ISO image, the timer reappeared.

However, on my Surface Book 2 15 inch, it shipped with 1703 and when it updated to 1709, the time remaining also disappeared.

If you go ahead and reinstall windows, do let us know if it fixed it for you. Also, I'm not sure if a clean install removes the factory calibration on the display so do it at your own risk.

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  • I did a clean install from USB media of 1709 on my Book 2 because it stuck in an update loop of 2-3 hours after switching it on for the first time. My SP4 did not lose the time remaining when it updated last fall.
    – Falco Alexander
    Mar 6, 2018 at 19:37
  • can you please try the mentioned solution above?
    – Falco Alexander
    Mar 31, 2018 at 8:43
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Here's what I had to do:

1) Delete [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power] "UserBatteryDischargeEstimator"=dword:ffffffff

2) Delete and then re-add "EnergyEstimationDisabled"=dword:00000000

My registry had the EnergyEstimationDisabled set to 0 and when I deleted UserBatteryDischargeEstimator - the timer did not appear. So I deleted and then re-added the EnergyEstimationDisabled key and it works fine now.

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  • did you try with 1709 or 1803? the reg changes require at least a logoff/logon.
    – Falco Alexander
    May 9, 2018 at 12:33
  • this works 2018, HP 450 G5, but the time over battery mouseover, is not correct.. it shows something like 43456677 hours 35 min left
    – jmp
    Sep 11, 2018 at 22:22
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Head over to BIOS to check if the Show Battery Estimated Time is enabled if all of the above methods is not working for you.

At least this works for my HP 15-cs0033tx.

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On a MS Surface Pro 2017 i7 7660 16gb Ram 528gb HD I had to;

Delete

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power] "EnergyEstimationEnabled"=dword:00000001

&

"UserBatteryDischargeEstimator"=dword:ffffffff

Then Add

"EnergyEstimationDisabled"=dword:00000000

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0

How to generate a Battery Report in Windows 10:

  1. Right-click on the Start menu to bring up the menu

  2. Command Prompt - Choose Command Prompt (Admin) from the menu. Note that this must be the Admin version.

  3. Yes to UAC prompt - A prompt will appear to which you need to give permission.

  4. Command line - Copy and paste powercfg /batteryreport /output "C:\battery_report.html" (or what you want) into the command prompt window.

  5. Open file - You should see a file labeled battery_report.html. Double-click on it to open the file.

Making Sense of the Report: The report itself is made up of a few somewhat obvious subsections. The first area defines the parameters of the hardware, OS version, and other file details. The next section is called Installed batteries and gives a general breakdown of the battery installed on your computer.

Recent Usage is a very useful section as it details the time, state (active, suspended), power source and remaining capacity of the battery. In short, this is the record of when the laptop went to sleep, became active, and or charged with AC power along with the mWh capacity. If your computer is waking when it should not, you should see it here.

Other areas like Usage history and Battery capacity history are good to check for battery health. It is well known that Li-On batteries deteriorate over time, and this is where you can see that happen.

Battery life estimates is probably the most interesting section for most users. Here you can see what the OS is predicting for your computer's battery life with regular usage. This feedback tends to be more stable and accurate than the live estimate found by clicking the battery icon.

Like all data sources, the more information this tool has, the more accurate the report.

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