It’s worth noting that these modes aren’t set in stone. Last May we learned that HP would not be using Vista’s predefined settings. The company announced they were instead putting in their own profiles of power management, not unlike Lenovo.

In fact, the Chinese company has built a small part of its reputation thanks to its energy-efficient profiles. Microsoft reacted to this criticism swiftly by explaining that they were “actively encouraging” the development of new power management modes. However, many still complain that it is difficult and restrictive.

Windows XP also features customisable power management, and as the name points out “maximal battery level”? is supposed to increase a machine’s battery life. Unfortunately there are fewer options available to those looking to personalise a profile’s power consumption. There are no options to configure the use of Wi-Fi or to modify the impact your USB ports have on a battery.

Really, what does it do?

We thought that it would be ideal to measure the effect of power management modes in XP and Vista to judge how effective each system is and whether or not there’s a clear difference.

The first thing which jumps out at you is the relative difference between XP and Visa. The “power saving” mode offers a real gain in Vista, unlike XP’s “maximum battery power”. In the first case we add 10.4% to the total battery life, and under XP the difference is less than 1%.

It’s proof that Microsoft worked on Vista’s power management to offer a real improvement, especially compared to its predecessor. We can go as far as to say that it’s the most fruitful short-term solution to getting the most out of your battery and the first step to closing the gap between the old and new operating systems.

When a user wants to turn a machine off, they can choose between a complete shut down or standby, which saves the data and the applications running at the time in memory. The other option is to put the machine into hibernate, in which case the data is stored on the hard drive allowing the machine to be turned off while reducing the (temps de remise sous tension).