blog.watashii » windows

Change Power Scheme From Windows Command Prompt

watashii — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 10:16:53 +0000

If you have a laptop, Windows provides different power schemes that you can switch (or create your own) for power management. You can switch your power scheme the same way using the command prompt using the powercfg utility.

To list all the available power schemes, open the Windows command prompt and run powercfg /list

C:\Users\Watashii>powercfg /list

Existing Power Schemes (* Active)
-----------------------------------
Power Scheme GUID: 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e  (Balanced)
Power Scheme GUID: 49ef8fc0-bb7f-488e-b6a0-f1fc77ec649b  (Dell Recommended) *
Power Scheme GUID: 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c  (High performance)
Power Scheme GUID: a1841308-3541-4fab-bc81-f71556f20b4a  (Power saver)

To change your power scheme (to Power Saver for example), run powercfg /setactive

powercfg /setactive a1841308-3541-4fab-bc81-f71556f20b4a

Tip: You can also put the above command inside a batch (.bat) file and run this conveniently like a shortcut.

Windows Desktop Shortcut to Activate Screensaver

watashii — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 06:59:00 +0000

For all the power saving green freaks out there, heres how to create a handy Windows desktop shortcut to activate the screensaver immediately.

Step 1

Right click on the desktop > New > Shortcut

Step 2

In the “Type in the location of the item“, add in the following: %SystemRoot%\system32\logon.scr /s

Note this is the location of the screen-saver executable file that is used during Windows user login. You can switch to another screen-saver file of your choice (eg look for different .scr files under the C:\windows\system32\ folder)

Step 3

Give it a shortcut name to complete, eg: “Activate Screensaver”

Step 4

Optionally you can change the icon of your choice: Right click on your shortcut > Properties > Change Icon…

Live Messenger 8.1/8.5 Bypass Mandatory Upgrade

watashii — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:48:47 +0000

Today when logging into my Windows Live Messenger 8.1, I received a message forcing me to upgrade to the latest Windows Live Messenger (2009). This was discussed on their blog less than 1 month ago (thanks for the short heads-up). However, like many others, upgrading to the 2009 version was not ideal. That is: it just doesn’t work at all.

For me, I ran into problems logging in (via my workplace), as I kept getting the error: “Signing in to Windows Live Messenger failed because the authentication service is not compatible with this version of the program.
Error code: 8100030f”. And NOTHING in the online help provided any clues with this message!

So the only resolution for me was to find a way to continue using the old version. Here I found a workaround to skip the mandatory upgrade (I’m on XP, however Vista should work also).

1.) Exit your Live Messenger, then locate the messenger executable file, where-ever you’ve installed it.

2.) Right click on its properties.

3.) Under Compatibility tab, change the compatibility mode for Windows 2000. This is because Live Messenger 8.1/8.5 is still compatible on an older version of Windows, and this version will not enforce a mandatory upgrade.

4.) Press OK and start Live Messenger. It will repair itself for the first time it starts.

5.) Login should be back to normal afterwards!

Do you know any other workarounds?

Abort Windows Shutdown Using Shortcut

watashii — Fri, 01 May 2009 12:41:13 +0000

This follows on from the previous post on how to force shutdown your Windows machine using a shortcut. This post shows how to cancel / stop Windows from shutting down after launching the shutdown command (eg by accident).

To create this shortcut, open Notepad, and add the following line of text, then save it with a .bat extension. You need to hit the shortcut quickly if you want to abort in time.

shutdown.exe -a

Where: -a abort shutdown

[abort_shutdown.bat] 32 bytes

Force Shutdown Windows XP Using Shortcut

Force Shutdown Windows XP Using Shortcut

watashii — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:35:59 +0000

Here is a handy way to force shutdown your Windows XP machine using a shortcut. To create this shortcut, open Notepad, and add the following line of text, then save it with a .bat extension.

shutdown.exe -f -s -t 5 -c "bye"

Where: -s shutdown (use -r for restart) -f force shutdown -t time delay (5 secs) -c prompted comment, "bye"

[shutdown.bat] 32 bytes

Abort Windows Shutdown Using Shortcut

Windows Vista – Change Sleep Button to Shutdown Button

watashii — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 09:19:02 +0000

Recently got my new computer system loaded with Windows Vista (Home Basic). The first annoyance I encountered was that the default power down on the Start Menu is the orange sleep mode button.

Having sleep mode allows quick resume of Windows without needing to reload Windows from scratch, as well as saving power – the benefits obvious.

But for the not-so occasional PC user, a shutdown button is more convenient. Here is how to swap it with red shutdown button.

- Goto [Start > Control Panel > Power Options]

- Click on the power plan in use, and select Advanced Power Settings

- Expand the + signs under Power Buttons and Lid, then Start Menu and Power Buttons

- Then in the dropdown box set it to the Shutdown setting

XP Themes Designed & Signed by Microsoft

watashii — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 14:16:35 +0000

Want a change for your current XP theme? Here are some nice themes for your Windows XP/2003 which are designed and signed by Microsoft. This means you can use these themes directly (Control Panel > Display Properties) without modifying any of your Windows system files.

For other non-signed user designed themes, you might like to check out the patching utility UxTheme Multipatcher.