Microsoft Windows 10 update will bring effective battery saving feature for PCs

The major problem with portable devices is the battery life. While many companies are working on improving the battery life of their products, it looks like Microsoft is also taking another angle to solving this biggest pain point.

In the company's recent blog, Microsoft discusses how battery life is drained due to multiple apps running in the background. Further, the tech giant has announced that it is coming up with a solution that will effectively help users save battery while using their laptops. Thus, according to the company in the upcoming Windows 10 Insider Preview build, Microsoft will be introducing a new Power Throttling feature that will save overall battery usage in laptops.

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Microsoft has said, that in the latest Insider Preview build (Build 16176), the company has leveraged modern silicon capabilities to run background work in a power-efficient manner, thereby enhancing battery life significantly while still giving users access to powerful multitasking capabilities of Windows. "With "Power Throttling", when background work is running, Windows places the CPU in its most energy efficient operating modes - work gets done, but the minimal possible battery is spent on that work," the company explains on its blog.

The Power Throttling feature that will probably be rolled out with Microsoft Windows 10 Preview Build 16176 will provide up to 11 percent savings in CPU power consumption even in most "strenuous use cases." However, it looks like the Power Throttling feature will currently be made available only for processors with Intel's Speed Shift technology, available in Intel's 6th-gen (and beyond) Core processors. On the other hand, the company has stated that it is working on expanding support to other processors as well over the next few months.

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How does it work?

Microsoft says that the company has built a sophisticated detection system into Windows. "The OS identifies work that is important to you (apps in the foreground, apps playing music, as well as other categories of important work we infer from the demands of running apps and the apps the user interacts with),"

Further, Mircosoft says that if users face any issue with the feature then they can do three things.

Firstly users can provide feedback. Basically, they will have to run the Feedback Hub and file feedback under the Power and Battery >Throttled Applications category.

Secondly, users can manually control system-wide throttling by using the power slider. This can be found by clicking the battery icon on the taskbar.

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Lastly, users can also manually opt-out specific apps from power-throttling by going to Battery Settings in Settings > System > Battery > Battery Usage by App. Users will have to select the app they want to switch off power throttling and after selecting the app they can toggle Manage by Windows to off. Users will then need to uncheck the "Reduce work app does when in background" checkbox.

Alternatively, Microsoft says that the title Power Throttling is just the testing name. It could change with the next official release of Windows.