windows powercfg

Did not try "powercfg /?"

1. Drop the "/" before the powercfg.
2. Do not paraphrase error messages. The time you save by not supplying the full error message is less than the time I waste trying to decode your interpretration.
3. Disclose the version of Windoze that you're using. MS created some problems in powercfg in release 1909. We're at 2004 or 20H2 now, and I suspect that there still may be problems.
4. Disclose the Acer model number of your laptops.
5. Disclose whether you have a battery installed and if it's recognized as an ACPI compliant control method battery. I've seen a few 3rd party replacement battery that lack this feature and therefore do not work with powercfg.

Good luck.

Tried both, and a backslash, for fun.

C:\Windows\system32>/powercfg /batteryreport gets - Invalid Parameters -- try "/?" for help

C:\Windows\system32>/powercfg /batteryreport gets - '/powercfg' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. Same with leading backslash.

W7 Home premium SP1 x64, but reads as W7 personal 6.01.7601 SP1 x64 to SandraPro. Powercfg.exe is v6.1.7600.16385, from 2009

I've got two Acers - one being troubleshot that produced an early battery death - an Aspire 5552 and a 'reference' Acer 5742z, with two working Acer stock batteries of different age and capacity. ASD1051 (panasonic) and ASD1031 (sanyo).

The dead battery is generic, as will be the replacement(s) when they arrive.

All charge and run and report capacity in operation, though the actual charging current is reported as 0 on both units for all batteries using simple outboard 'gimmicks'.

The Acer 5552 now reports all batteries as 'suggest you replace soon', whether good or bad.

No problems with 5742z when dealing with dead battery - just recognizes capacity is zero (discharging) or 100% (charging) and does what it should under the circumstances.

When powercfg DOES run, I'm told it buries a text report file somewhere in the users folders, with an unknown name and file extension, that I'm supposed to search for. Any help in this regard would also be appreciated.

RL

By taking this literally

C:\Windows\system32>powercfg /?

got ~5 pages of print describing valid powercfg commands.

batteryreport isn't one of them - it's what I'm interested in, though.

Too bad there's not a simple smb monitor built-in.

Might not be much use without knowledge of the state-machines involved, but it would give some idea of com and measurement integrity.

RL

OK. I googled it. W8 or later.

RL

I've got it on XP SP3. It is described in Wikipedia:

powercfg (executable name powercfg.exe) is a command-line utility that is used from an elevated Windows Command Prompt to control all configurable power system settings, including hardware-specific configurations that are not configurable through the Control Panel, on a per-user basis. It was first introduced by Microsoft in Windows XP SP2 in 2004.[1][2]

I tried running it. I could get a help list but not much else.

Usage

powercfg must be run from an elevated command prompt, and, under Windows XP, it requires workstation Administrator or power user rights. Power Schemes are configured on a per-user basis. The most common cause of problems with power saving and hibernation on Windows systems is an incompatible device driver. This can be diagnosed by disabling each device in turn (with powercfg /devicedisablewake). When activating power saving across a local area network, it is important to ensure that software updates, security patches and antivirus updates in particular, are not disrupted. Microsoft recommends to configure its Windows Server Update Services to install updates when workstations are available and Windows Task Scheduler can be set to wake the machine when needed.

I never use the hibernate or sleep commands, and never run from a battery, so powercfg is not going to do much on my machine. But I thank you for mentioning it so I could find out what it does.

You get an elementary battery report from a 'powercfg -energy' prompt in pre-W8 OS. This records 60 seconds of operating power information.

An HTML formatted report shows up in the system32 folder, but nothing of the dynamics or history available in the /batteryreport.

I didn't want to change anything (yet). Just wanted to see what was going on, or different, between normal unit/battery and batterykiller/dead battery.

RL