A+ Technician's on the Job Guide to Windows XP
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Power options can be very important in Windows XP, especially if users are running laptop computers. It is highly possible that you are working in an environment where a number of laptop computers are in use. In fact, you may be in an environment where laptop computers are favored over desktop computers, since this gives users much more mobility. As corporate computer users have become more mobile, the importance of mobile optimization for laptop computers is as important as ever. In many networking environments, laptop computers are the desktop and mobile systems of choice, so it is important that laptop computers perform well both when connected to the network and on the road.
System performance for mobile users is primarily concerned with hardware and power management. In terms of hardware, you may consider creating different hardware profiles for the laptop computer, one of which can be used when the computer is docked and one when the computer is not docked. This feature tells the laptop computer what hardware is available under docked or undocked conditions. The best way to manage battery power is to disable the hardware features that are not needed when the computer is mobile. You can learn more about creating hardware profiles in Chapter 4.
Beyond the hardware profile option, you should also keep the following settings in mind for laptop computers. First, in the Performance Options window, on the Visual Effects tab, consider choosing the “adjust for best performance” setting option. This will remove a lot of Windows XP’s graphical features, but will help conserve power. On the Advanced tab, be sure that Programs are selected for Processor and Memory usage.
Aside from these basic settings, you should take a look at power settings in order to make the best use of battery power when the laptop computer is running off batteries. In Control Panel, open Power Options. You’ll see the Power Options properties tabs, shown in Figure 10-12.
On the Power Schemes tab, you can choose a power scheme that is appropriate for the laptop computer, such as the Portable/Laptop option. By default, this option turns off the monitor after 15 minutes and the hard disks after 30 minutes, but you can adjust these settings to create your own specific scheme. If you have enabled hibernation, you’ll also see a hibernation scheme option here as well, which is set by default to hibernate after three hours of inactivity.
Speaking of hibernation, Windows XP supports the hibernation feature that enables the computer to write current memory data to the hard disk and then effectively shut down. When you reboot the computer, the data stored on the disk is loaded back into memory so that your computer appears just as you left it. This is a great energy-saving feature. You can enable hibernation by clicking the check box option on the Hibernate tab, but the computer’s BIOS must support ACPI or APM 1.2 for it to work.
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