Vista Taskbar Quirk-Power Manager Battery Meter disappears?

Well the battery meter doesnt completely disappear, but the green fill color of the battery meter does disappear when combined with a light colored background. The black text font becomes almost invisible as well.

Does anyone else notice this Vista Aero taskbar quirk? The battery icon i'm referring to is the Thinkpad Power Manager utility icon, the horizontal one to the left of the small power plug icon. I've tried disabling the transparency feature, but that doesnt solve the problem. It's more noticeable if you have a lighter colored webpage or wallpaper directly behind the meter.

I had to do another clean install today and everything was normal after installing all the drivers. Then i went ahead and did a windows update. Upon rebooting, the battery icon's fill color and text font disappeared.

 

Same problem here. Would appreciate it if anyone could post a solution. Thanks!

 

I believe this is because the Vista start menu is somewhat translucent. Try adjusting the transparency settings in Control Panel > Personalization > Window Colour and Appearance.

I personally use the Vista Basic colour scheme on my x61t to see the battery meter and get extra battery life.

 

Nope, transparency settings do not solve the problem. Before i ran the windows update, the Aeros' feature had already been enabled and the battery icon was normal. After completion of the update, the battery meter changed.

 

Did anyone every find a resolution to this problem? After reformatting my HD and reinstalling Vista, I used a different wallpaper than the original in the Lenovo setup. Needless to say, the Power Manager Battery Guage looked all washed out. I uninstalled, reinstalled, made sure I had the latest version from Lenovo.com, but no luck fixing it. If I use a dark wallpaper, I can see the battery guage, but I cannot see it if the wallpaper color is anything but dark.

I would love to know if anyone has found a solution.

 

It happens now and then. Now I keep the battery plugged in all the time and it hasn't happened since. The other issue is that the battery meter completely disappears i.e. the program exits randomly without warning and the only way to get it back is to reboot.

 

Lenovo recently released a new update for the Power Manager utility, version 2.08. Has anyone had luck with the new utility version?

I'm hoping they have resolved the transparent battery icon "issue," along with the few other problems associated with the Power Manager.

Edit: Just installed the new Thinkpad Power Manager. The short answer is no, the new version does NOT solve the transparency issue with the battery icon.

 

I noticed the same thing with the Lenovo Battery Icon changing to a white background with gray text, making it unreadable. On the new T61 I'm using, you can reproduce the behavior by having all windows unmaximized (ie, view desktop or view a window which is not maximized). You will see the battery icon as well as the taskbar color change.

I think it's the Windows Vista Standard Color Theme that's controlling that. If you change it to Windows Vista Basic, it will change the taskbar color options so it does not change the battery icon (or color of the taskbar). You can find this under Control Panel -> Appearance and Personalization -> Change the color scheme (you may have to go under advanced and use the standard control panel if it prompts you to).