rectangletangle
rectangletangle

Reputation: 52911

How do I get battery information in windows?

I have two laptops here. One is running Vista, the other Windows 7. I need to get the specifications on the batteries in both, how do I go about that?

The reason I'm asking is that I'd like to know if they're lithium ion or something else. Supposedly other types of batteries may have adversely affected charge capacities if left plugged in for too long.

Upvotes: 8

Views: 17664

Answers (5)

toffitomek
toffitomek

Reputation: 41

Here is a interesting link: http://www.nextofwindows.com/find-out-how-healthy-your-battery-is-on-your-windows-7-laptop/ command described there

powercfg -energy

will produce you a nice report with many details about your battery.

Upvotes: 4

Ansh sharma
Ansh sharma

Reputation: 31

Try this:

powercfg -energy

Run this command on cmd as administrator mode.It will create a report as HTML file in your administrator path. Open that file and here you will get everything you want about your battery.

Upvotes: 1

Kate Gregory
Kate Gregory

Reputation: 18944

If you're using managed code (C# or VB) the Windows API Code Pack has a wrapper class that raises .NET events when power events (going on or off AC, reaching critical battery level etc) happen and exposes properties like estimated battery life remaining. It also includes a whole pile of gory details - the sample shows them.

Upvotes: 3

Garett
Garett

Reputation: 16818

You could use WMI and the Win32_Battery class. It has a property called Chemistry that has this information.

UPDATE:

Actually, there is also Win32_PortableBattery, which would be more appropriate for a laptop battery. They both inherit from the CIM_Battery class.

Upvotes: 7

Preet Sangha
Preet Sangha

Reputation: 65466

The IOCTL_BATTERY_QUERY_INFORMATION info from DeviceIOControl can tell you the following info:

Information level

  • BatteryDeviceName
  • BatteryEstimatedTime
  • BatteryGranularityInformation
  • BatteryInformation
  • BatteryManufactureDate
  • BatteryManufactureName
  • BatterySerialNumber
  • BatteryTemperature
  • BatteryUniqueID

The BatteryInformation structure contains the Chemistry field which describes this info you require.

  • PbAc : Lead Acid
  • LION : Lithium Ion
  • Li-I : Lithium Ion
  • NiCd : Nickel Cadmium
  • NiMH : Nickel Metal Hydride
  • NiZn : Nickel Zinc
  • RAM : Rechargeable Alkaline-Manganese

There is an example here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb204769(v=VS.85).aspx

Upvotes: 5

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