Migrating a Power Plan in Windows 7

Windows 7 Power Plans control how the computer uses energy, where users can select a plan that meets their needs without having to elevate privileges. The command-line tool Powercfg.exe allows users to manage and migrate power plans between computers. In the following steps we will be using the import and export options of the Powercfg command-line utility:

  1. Open an elevated command prompt and type powercfg –list to get a list of existing power schemes. For instance, you want to export the Scheme ‘My Power Saver Plan’ which you have created earlier on! Take a note of the GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) assigned to your plan
  2. Create a directory where to export the plan and change into this directory. For instance, C:\Export
  3. At the command prompt type powercfg.exe –export filename.pow {GUID}, where {GUID} is the GUID of your plan. For instance, Powercfg –export myplan.pow {0d8f05e4-d2ac-4f34-9032-3488caae1267}
  4. To activate a plan type in Powercfg –setactive SCHEME_BALANCED – if you want to set the Balanced scheme as the active one
  5. Verify that the plan set in the previous step is active (an asterisk appears at the end of line) by typing in powercfg –list
  6. To delete the instance of the exported plan from your computer, you can issue the command powercfg –delete {GUID}, where {GUID} is the GUID of the exported plan
  7. To get back the exported plan, issue the command powercfg –import filename. For instance, Powercfg import c:\export\myplan.pow – when moving the exported plan to a new computer make sure that you copy the .pow file (ex: myplan.pow) to the new computer and issue the import command from the new computer
  8. Verify that the power scheme has been imported successfully by issuing the command powercfg –list. The plan should be now available on the new computer and can be activated using Powercfg –setactive SCHEME_Name

Additionally, you can create a report in html format by issuing the command powercfg –energy. To load the report in your default browser issue the command start energy-report.html.

For more Powercfg command-line options visit Powercfg.

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