How to View All Power Plan Settings in a Text File in Windows
A power plan is a collection of hardware and system settings that manages how your computer uses power. Power plans can help you save energy, maximize system performance, or achieve a balance between the two.
Windows 10 provides the following default plans:
- Balanced - Offers full performance when you need it and saves power when you don't. This is the best power plan for most people.
- Power saver - Saves power by reducing PC performance and screen brightness. If you're using a laptop, this plan can help you get the most from a single battery charge.
- High performance - Maximizes screen brightness and might increase PC performance. This plan uses a lot more energy, so your laptop battery won't last as long between charges.
- Ultimate Performance - Only available starting with Windows 10 build 17083. Provides ultimate performance on higher end PCs.
- Custom power plan - These are only available if either your PC manufacturer (OEM) provided additional power plans, and/or you create a custom power plan. These are available to all users.
Normally, you could view all current settings of a power plan in Power Options. If you like, you could also output these settings to a text file. This can make it easier to share or show the power plan settings.
If you like, you can choose to include all hidden settings of a power plan, but these settings are hidden by default in Power Options since they usually do not apply to your computer.
This tutorial will show you how to output all current settings of a specified power plan to a text file to review in Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10.
EXAMPLE: All settings of a selected power plan in Power Options
Here's How:
1 Open a command prompt.
2 Do step 3 (current) or step 4 (specific) below for which power plan you want to output its settings to a text file.
A) Copy and paste the command below you want to use into the command prompt, press Enter, and go to step 5. (see screenshot below)
powercfg /Q >"%UserProfile%\Desktop\PowerPlanSettings.txt"
OR
(Includes hidden settings)
powercfg /QH >"%UserProfile%\Desktop\PowerPlanSettings.txt"
A) Copy and paste the command below into the command prompt, press Enter, and make note of the Power Scheme GUID of the power plan settings you want to output to a text file. (see screenshot below)
powercfg /L
The power scheme that has an asterisk * to the right of it is the current active power plan scheme.
B) Copy and paste the command below you want to use into the command prompt, press Enter, and go to step 5. (see screenshot below)
powercfg /Q GUID >"%UserProfile%\Desktop\PowerPlanSettings.txt"
OR
(Includes hidden settings)
powercfg /QH GUID >"%UserProfile%\Desktop\PowerPlanSettings.txt"
Substitute GUID in the command above with the actual GUID (ex: "381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e") of the power plan (ex: "Balanced") you want.
For example:powercfg /Q 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e >"%UserProfile%\Desktop\PowerPlanSettings.txt"
5 You will now have a PowerPlanSettings.txt file on your desktop.
6 When you open the PowerPlanSettings.txt file, you will see a subgroup GUID for each group (ex: "Hard disk") of settings, and a Power Setting GUID for each setting (ex: "Turn off hard disk after") in a group. (see screenshot below)
Each power setting will show you its minimum possible setting and maximum possible setting AND/OR possible settings available.
Each power setting will show you its Current AC Power Setting (plugged in) and Current DC Power Setting (on battery). These values will be in hexadecimal (hex). You can use a Hexadecimal to Decimal Converter to see the setting's decimal value.
For example, 0x000004b0 (hex) for how many seconds to Turn off hard disk after below would equal to 1200 (decimal) seconds (20 minutes).
That's it,
Shawn
Related Tutorials
- How to Change Power Plan Settings in Windows 10
- How to See Your Current Active Power Plan Scheme in Windows 10
- How to Choose a Power Plan Scheme in Windows 10
- How to Create a Custom Power Plan in Windows 10
- How to Rename a Power Plan in Windows 10
- How to Export and Import a Power Plan in Windows 10
- How to Reset and Restore Power Plans to Default Settings in Windows 10
- How to Restore Missing Default Power Plans in Windows 10
View All Power Plan Settings in Text File in Windows
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New #1
Nice Shawn. I was think about doing something like this but you do it so nice and so quick
What about adding the call to notepad to the command?
& notepad %UserProfile%\Desktop\PowerPlanSettings.txt
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New #3
Just tried this before I recommended it to a user at WinQ - I get
C:\Windows\system32>powercfg /QH >%UserProfile%\Desktop\PowerPlanSettings.txt
The system cannot find the path specified.
I think this might be because the Desktop folder is being maintained by OneDrive. Trying to open%UserProfile%\works via the Run dialog but trying to open%UserProfile%\Desktopfails in the Run dialog as well (even after adding a trailing backslash).
I really think this is because of OneDrive.
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New #5
But the path opens in Explorer exactly as typed - just not via CMD (nor Run).
I think OneDrive is catching it and redirecting it as the actual path becomes%UserProfile%\OneDrive\Desktop\.
or else the system is catching it natively. The Desktop special folder shortcut still exists in the profile folder, but just redirects to\OneDrive\Desktopinstead of\Desktop.
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New #7
oooh, didn't think quotes - let me try.
Nope - still doesn't work if your Desktop is actually managed / backed up by OneDrive.
has to be a way to do this regardless of location, with desktop being a special folder - but al I'm finding are programmatic ways to derive the path, like in .NET or C# or VB. Sigh.
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New #8
It's definitely caused by OneDrive when you have back up your Desktop folder to OneDrive turned on like below. Turning off the backup will allow it work as is, or specify a different path.
Turn On or Off OneDrive PC Folder Backup Protection in Windows 10
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New #9
Figured. I have it on for work, and it allows me to sync desktop, pictures and documents to my laptop.
I know I can adjust the path myself - just thought that it might be worth mentioning in the tut for the end user to verify their own path and use the appropriate path.
Another way would be to use PowerShell to do this, and this should work regardless of where the Desktop folder is located:
$DesktopPath = [Environment]::GetFolderPath("Desktop") ; powercfg /Q > $DesktopPath\PowerPlanSettings.txt
in both native PowerShell in Windows 10 (both regular user run and run as admin) as well as PS 7 installed on Windows 10 (both as user and as admin).
In fact, you can also add the command like zbook said to auto open it after it runs as well, appended on to that too.
For me, since I removed Notepad and have only Notepad++, my command is as follows:
$DesktopPath = [Environment]::GetFolderPath("Desktop") ; powercfg /Q > $DesktopPath\PowerPlanSettings.txt ; D:\Programs\Nppx64\notepad++.exe $DesktopPath\PowerplanSettings.txt
But for everyone else in the world with Notepad, it should simply work like so:
$DesktopPath = [Environment]::GetFolderPath("Desktop") ; powercfg /Q > $DesktopPath\PowerPlanSettings.txt ; notepad $DesktopPath\PowerplanSettings.txt
View All Power Plan Settings in Text File in Windows
How to View All Power Plan Settings in a Text File in WindowsPublished by Shawn BrinkCategory: General Tips
24 Apr 2021
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