Using Powercfg to Duplicate an Existing Power Scheme

Written by Barry Dysert (last updated September 10, 2020)

As you may know, your computer can run under a variety of different power schemes. A power scheme is a collection of hardware and system settings that manage how your computer uses power. They are typically used the most with laptops, where it's more crucial to trade off between performance and battery preservation. Even a desktop machine can use them, though. There are three schemes that come with Windows by default. They are Balanced, High Performance, and Power Saver, and you can create others if none of these suits you.

There is a command utility in Windows called Powercfg, which provides a great deal of control over your power schemes. (You can use the GUI for much of this functionality, too, but a lot of people prefer using the command line.) Powercfg takes numerous switches to tell it what you want to do regarding your power schemes. To see all of the switches available to Powercfg, invoke it with the "-HELP" (or "-?") switch.

For this tip we want to duplicate a power scheme. First, we'll get a list of the available power schemes (covered under another tip). (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. Powercfg -list.

Now let's say we want to duplicate the Balanced power scheme so that we can later tweak it without worrying about messing up the current Balance scheme. The switch you pass to Powercfg is the "-DUPLICATESCHEME" followed by the GUID of the scheme we want to duplicate: (See Figure 2.)

Figure 2. Powercfg -duplicatescheme.

Note that when we issued the -DUPLICATESCHEME command, the GUID of the duplicated scheme and its name were listed. Our next -LIST command shows that we now have two Balanced schemes, but the first one remains the active power scheme. (See Figure 3.)

Figure 3. Powercfg -list with duplicated Balanced scheme.

We should now change the name of the newly created Balanced scheme (with -CHANGENAME, covered under another Tip) so we can modify it without getting confused.

 This tip (13480) applies to Windows 7, 8, and 10.

Author Bio

Barry Dysert

Barry has been a computer professional for over 35 years, working in different positions such as technical team leader, project manager, and software developer. He is currently a software engineer with an emphasis on developing custom applications under Microsoft Windows. When not working with Windows or writing Tips, Barry is an amateur writer. His first non-fiction book is titled "A Chronological Commentary of Revelation." ...

MORE FROM BARRY

Creating a Bootable USB Flash Drive

If your hard disk becomes problematic to the point where you can't even boot from it, you'll be glad you have a bootable ...

Discover More

Cathy

Cathy is a small utility that lets you catalog network and external media for fast searching. It's handy if you have a ...

Discover More

Understanding IP Addresses

IP addresses are at the heart of computer networking. They are typically handled automatically, but you may find it ...

Discover More
More WindowsTips

Determining the MAC Address for a Network Device

MAC addresses are used to uniquely identify devices attached to your network. If you need to figure out what MAC address ...

Discover More

Windows 11 Processor Requirements

Windows 11 has different processor requirements than Windows 10. How do you know if your processor will work with Windows 11?

Discover More

Changing the MAC Address for a Network Adapter

MAC addresses are used to uniquely identify devices on your network, such as a network adapter. Here's how you can modify ...

Discover More
Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 5 - 4?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


Newest Tips