Microsoft continues to experiment with Windows power management

Enlarge (credit: kris kri1/4g)

One of the things that Microsoft does with its Insider Preview builds of Windows is run experiments. A couple of experiments that were briefly available during the development of the Creators Update are back, as Microsoft develops new power management capabilities.

The new feature is called Power Throttling, although this name is just temporary. Power Throttling was originally trialed in the Creators Update preview build 15002. When used in conjunction with an Intel Skylake or Kaby Lake processor-and only those processors, for the moment-the system will classify certain applications as being "background work." If a background task demands processor time, Windows will avoid kicking up the processor into a high performance mode, instead keeping it in its low power state. Only when a foreground application-or certain classes of important background task, such as music apps-needs processor time will the processor have its speed increased.

The slider is back. (credit: Microsoft)

Power Throttling is controlled by new settings in the Settings app-you can set them so that Windows will never treat certain apps as being background apps if you prefer-and by a second Creators Update-era experiment that has been resurrected. Build 15014 included a power management slider that appeared when you clicked the battery icon in the system notification area.

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