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    How to view power scheme setting values that are *actually* active?

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by CitizenInsomniac, Apr 25, 2020.

  1. CitizenInsomniac

    CitizenInsomniac Notebook Enthusiast

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    Understanding Windows power scheme settings used to be pretty straightforward, but with the introduction of the power scheme overlays it seems like understanding what the current power scheme really is has become much more complicated.

    To the best of my understanding, there are now several dimensions to power scheme management in Windows:
    • Baseline power scheme
      In Windows 10 this now defaults to Balanced (alias SCHEME_BALANCED), while other baseline power schemes - High Performance (alias SCHEME_MIN), Power Saver (alias SCHEME_MAX) and Ultimate Performance (GUID e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61) - are hidden by default but can be enabled if needed.
    • Power scheme overlay
      These are power scheme overlays that appear when you click on the battery icon, and they include the High Performance Overlay, Better Battery-life Overlay, and Max Performance Overlay.
      They're called overlays because they don't fully replace the active power scheme set in Control Panel - instead they override only the power settings defined within the overlay.
    • Power source type (AC or DC)
      For each power scheme setting there are two values defined: one for AC and one for DC power source type, so depending on whether the computer is running on battery or plugged in only one of those values can be active at any time.
    The problem this seems to pose is that the native Windows command-line tool for managing power scheme settings - powercfg - doesn't really acknowledge how these dimensions impact the actual state of power management in Windows. You can use it to view the AC & DC setting values for any power scheme or overlay, you can use it to view both visible and hidden settings, and you can use it to view the currently active power scheme (but not overlay). What seems to be missing is the ability to combine all 3 dimensions and answer the simple question:

    What are my currently active power settings?

    Is there any such tool that does that? Or am I missing some undocumented powercfg option that can show this view?
     
    Last edited: Apr 26, 2020
    CitizenInsomniac, Apr 25, 2020
    #1