[idea/request] Run program when laptop goes on/off battery

[fleon]

Does anyone know of a program (or a way in windows task scheduler) to run a program when a laptop goes on battery?  And then another program when it comes off battery?  For Vista, btw.

I really would like to be able to run my script that turns off Aero when my computer goes on battery- it's a significant power savings.

I know of a program called Vista Battery Saver which does something similar, but isn't acceptable.  It turns off Aero, which is more severe than turning off transparency.  Turning off Aero is overkill and doesn't seem to make much difference on battery life, so I really just want a way to turn off transparency.  It seems the most flexible way to do this would be to have a method for running programs when the computer detects that it has changed to battery and then when it goes back on AC. 

Thanks for any ideas/etc...

[fleon]

Never mind!  I have just discovered the most excellent tool "BatteryRun" by Skrommel.  Many thanks skrommel!  works great!

[jgpaiva]

Just crosslinking with the batteryrun discussion thread: http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=8631.0
And download it here

[lanux128]

also this thread here will be useful with an usage example.

[fleon]

Thanks!  I have it running a batch file now to kick off a bunch of battery saving tricks

[fcoury]

Thanks!  I have it running a batch file now to kick off a bunch of battery saving tricks

Care to share? 

[Catalin]

There is also an open-source project called Windows Power Events Monitor at http://sourceforge.net/projects/windowspowereve/ ... also described at http://cool-stuff-or-not.blogspot.com/2008/02/managing-notebook-hdd-problems-with.html but you can just ignore the hdd-related part (which might work strange on certain configurations) and just use it to have your custom scripts executed on power events ... and of course you can extend the source code if you need that