Windows 7 is harmful to notebook battery life

[7alewi]

The jury is still out in regards to whether or not Windows 7 is harmful to notebook battery life.

Microsoft is investigating issues of notebook battery life that have been sporadic although reoccurring while operating Windows 7. At this point it is unclear if Windows 7 is doing permanent damage to battery life or the battery life has just been misreported.

As reported by PCWorld.com, Brian Ehlert, a Microsoft MVP, disclosed in November of 2009:
"Now, Win7 does include the ability to use Vista drivers - that is built on purpose so hardware manufacturers would not have to turn around and immediately write new drivers.
I am using all stock Win7 drivers. So that tells me that it is a core deficiency / bug - not a driver specific bug. Rather a software interacting with hardware bug.
My battery life went from 8 hours to 15 minutes, with only an fdisk, format, and install in between. Yes, totally unacceptable."


While some issues seem to be a matter of Windows 7 not reporting the remaining battery life correctly, warning that the battery is almost drained prematurely, there are users who have reported switching operating systems back to Windows Vista, or a non-Windows operating system, and still experiencing that same reduced battery life. This suggests that by permanent damage may be caused to your notebook even after removing the operating system. Although Windows 7 was released in October of 2009, poor battery life was reported with users running Windows 7 RC as well.


Source


Do you think its true?

[Neoxter]

Recently, I got a message "consider changing ur battery" on my dad's laptop, running win 7(It has win vista b4), but it's still working. Now my dad installed a program that drains the battery completely then he charges it again, and the message disappears. I don't know why

[Kingroudy]

WTF!
i have the same problem as Neo, although i THINK my battery is not good, i'm not sure.

[7alewi]

I never noticed anything as I always keep my charger plugged in.

[SysTaMatIcS]

pcs for life

[Sheriff Ice]

i have been using the W7 for the past three months, i am not having any kind of these problems, even my battery life has extended, i used to work on my laptop on vista for about 2hr without charger, now it is up to 3h 30 min with W7.

It depends on the hardware and not software, how can a hardware damage a battery WTF?!!!
the OS doesnt recharge the battery or do operations on it, it just reports the status of the battery, i dont know how this is related to damaging the battery?!

[Tawa]

Originally Posted by Sheriff Ice

the OS doesnt recharge the battery or do operations on it, it just reports the status of the battery, i dont know how this is related to damaging the battery?!

The OS plays a big role in draining electricity from the battery of course it does not recharge it. Therefore, the OS affects the battery life.

To me, 7 improved my battery life, and honestly I think cause it uses way much less RAM than Vista did.

I was able once to work on Power Saver only on Eclipse[JDK for those wondering] on 7, and when the battery was at about 90% I was having 4 hours on the time remaining

[Neoxter]

Yeah the same for me, the battery life has increased ever since I removed the awful vista. But recently i got that message.

It's all over the internet, here's a link from microsoft forums

Microsoft owes me a battery

[El-Meghwar]

So.. i had windows vista on my laptop, i removed it and installed XP, i was thinking of installing windows 7..
after reading this thread, shall i reconsider it or what??

[xcoder]

Hahahahaha it was so good to be true. I hope its limited to this issue.

- PCs all the way
- I will stick to Ubuntu and XP