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