Show power icon in tray on desktop PC

Question

I have many power plans in my desktop PC - one is optimized for downloading (PC doesn't sleep but turns the display off), one for reading, one for games and so on. But the problem is that I have no power icon in tray (notification area), so I created a shortcut of Power Plans on my desktop, but it's really annoying.

So how can I make Windows show power icon in tray?

For moderators: this may seem duplicate of this and this, but they are about laptops. And their answers didn't work for this case.

Solution

I have researched this myself for the same reason. I too had different power plans for different tasks. I found out that in windows 7 there is no real easy way to switch between powerplans and it will result in using a third party program. Laptops usually come with a power manager of the manufacturer to do the very same thing. Luckily there are a few free ones out there.

But when you look into that, it is good to know that it is also possible to change the powerplan from the commandline directly. You could even create a scheduled task that changes the powerplan on certain occassions, such as, when you lock the pc and when you unlock the pc. I used this technique to go into a powersving mode everytime I lock the pc, and go out of it everytime I unlock the pc.

To make one, do the following:

1. Open a commandprompt window
2. Type in: powercfg -l
3. Rightclick in the window, and select mark.
4. Use the mouse, to select the entire GUID number for the powerscheme you want to set. (It'll look like: 12345678-1234-1234-1234-1234567890abc)
5. After the entire GUID is selected, right click. (this will copy the text to the clipboard.)
6. Make a shortcut or task in the task schedular and give it the following program with parameters:

{Guid} is that long number you copied:

 powercfg -setactive {Guid}

You can even download a system-tray program launcher, and add these commands as programs.

Comments

[fixer1234]

The question is different from the one it was closed as being a duplicate of (battery status icon vs. power options icon). However, it appears to be a duplicate of superuser.com/questions/638952/…, which is mentioned in the question. That question has no answers. For reference, the duplicate link should probably be changed.

[Florian Castellane]

it's really sad that there are obscure configuration options like this one in Windows... The feature is there, but it's inaccessible!

[Jet]

Thanks for the powercfg tip. I can create a little program for showing an icon in the tray. However I wanted to do it in windows-way