By default, only the most recently used plan as well as "balanced" are available. How do I display all 3 default power plans? I'd like to avoid third party programs if possible.
8 Answers
Battery Care installs malware along with it. You can opt out (although not obviously at first glance). I would discourage users from installing software that bundles malware. The author gets barely enough to buy a beer per year from that stuff and it only serves as a distribution point for malware and spyware. It needs to end.
Here's an alternative that doesn't bundle any malware.
Shameless plug: Power Buddy
Power Buddy is a very lightweight system tray application that allows you to switch between all the defined power plans.
No malware. No junk.
Full Disclosure: I am the author of this project.
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This was simple, and automatically populated with all my power plans into a tray context menu. Good suggestion– cellepoJan 13, 2016 at 20:54
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Warning: a user reported his experience that Windows Defender reported a Trojan in the installer for Power Buddy. Apr 26, 2017 at 20:40
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1@G-Man Update: The trojan false-positive has been fixed: github.com/PerfectlyCromulentLtd/PowerBuddy/issues/12 May 4, 2017 at 15:31
Windows 7 has no natural settings to show more than 2 power plans in the system tray. However, you can create shortcuts or hotkeys to switch between your power plans. How-to Geek has a nice article about how to do that: Create a Shortcut or Hotkey to Switch Power Plans.
One of the users in a forum having the same question as you says that this solution is perfect; but each time he ran the shortcut, the command prompt popped up for a second. To prevent this he created a small script. You can see the related post here.
There is also a Windows sidebar gadget which can do what you want. It's called Power Scheme and can be downloaded from this page.
Although you avoid 3rd party solutions, there is a tool called Power Plan Assistant for Windows® 7 which can do the job as well.
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2Note that Power Plan Assistant is nagware. After one week of use, the software disables itself, and you're required to download a new version from the website and to install it again. You have to repeat this every week as long as you keep using it.– phsourceOct 27, 2011 at 3:35
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A good alternative I've found is BatteryCare, at batterycare.net/en/download.html– phsourceDec 6, 2011 at 1:35
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Battery Care has already been suggested as an answer to the question: superuser.com/a/162697/13567 Dec 6, 2011 at 7:38
I would recommend Battery Care, a freeware tool that does more than allowing you to easily change the power plans (Power Saver, Balanced and High Performance) . See this Battery Care review
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Could you write a bit more about it, especially in comparison with Power Plan Assistant?– mafuJul 29, 2010 at 8:58
Just use the shortcut key WIN+X which will bring up the mobility center; then you may choose the power plan you want. very simple!!
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This is 4 strokes/click + a large menu select. compared to in Win10: 6 clicks using the stock battery guage notification/tray icon. So this is not much of a comparative savings in Win10.– cellepoJan 13, 2016 at 20:52
Have you looked at Power Plan Assistant
Searching for 'show all 3 power plans in tray software'? Congratulations, you just have found a comprehensive solution. Power Plan Assistant for Windows 7 is an ultimate manual / automatic power plan switcher and a compact (yet very informative) system Power icon replacement. It's the multiple award-winning, the world's smartest power management tool. Blockquote
I'll throw in a late update to this, Power Scheme Switcher, under the MIT license with source code available from the same place. Built in C# on Visual Studio 2012.
See my answer to this an other question, on how to create your own Power Scheme switcher menu, using only Windows built-in features :
https://superuser.com/a/1631250/711015
That way you can show and have access to switch to any number of schemes.