All About Microsoft
Mary-Jo FoleyMicrosoft's Windows 7 chief: It's not us; it's your batteries
Summary
Windows President Steven Sinofsky posted to the Engineering Windows 7 blog about the growing number of alleged battery-notification issues reported by some customers over the past week. If you want to know all about battery performance, telemetry data, and more, read his full February 8 post. If you don’t have time, here’s the synopsis: It’s not us; it’s your batteries.
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Blogger Info
Mary-Jo Foley
Biography
Mary-Jo Foley
Mary Jo Foley has covered the tech industry for 20 years for a variety of publications, including ZDNet, eWeek and Baseline. She has kept close tabs on Microsoft strategy, products and technologies for the past 10 years. In the late 1990s, she penned the award-winning "At The Evil Empire" column for ZDNet, and more recently the Microsoft Watch blog for Ziff Davis.
Got a tip? Send her an email with your rants, rumors, tips and tattles. Confidentiality guaranteed.
Microsoft’s President of Windows has weighed in about the reports of alleged problems with PC batteries coming from some Windows 7 users.
Steven Sinofsky posted to the Engineering Windows 7 blog about the battery-notification issue on February 8. If you want to know all about battery performance, telemetry data, and more, read the full post. If you don’t have time, here’s the synopsis: It’s not us; it’s your batteries.
Sinofsky blogged:
“(E)very single indication we have regarding the reports we’ve seen are simply Windows 7 reporting the state of the battery using this new feature and we’re simply seeing batteries that are not performing above the designated threshold.”
Sinofsky said that Microsoft and its partners have been investigating the reports, especially over the past few days, and have found the battery-metering feature of Windows 7 to be working fine. Because previous versions of Windows didn’t include this meter, some users may not have been aware their batteries were degrading, he said. But there is no truth to reports that Windows 7 is sapping batteries prematurely or that any drivers or the BIOS in Windows 7 PCs are not functioning correctly, Sinofsky said.
Microsoft is advising any Windows 7 customers who are receiving unwarranted battery-expiration notices or experiencing other battery-related issues to file a report with Microsoft or the original PC maker. Sinofsky advised those individuals to email him directly via the Engineering 7 contact page, use the TechNet forum, the Microsoft Answers forum, “or visit support.microsoft.com where you can get additional information about how to contact Microsoft assisted support in your region.”
There you have it. Are those of you experiencing problems satisfied by this explanation? Meanwhile, how about those Windows 7 reliability-update issues?
Mary Jo has covered the tech industry for more than 25 years for a variety of publications and Web sites, and is a frequent guest on radio, TV and podcasts, speaking about all things Microsoft-related. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).
Disclosure
Mary-Jo Foley
Freelance journalist/blogger Mary Jo Foley has nothing to disclose. WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). I do not own Microsoft stock or stock in any of its partners or competitors. I have no business ventures that are sponsored by/funded by Microsoft or any of its partners or competitors. I have not accepted any consulting funds from Microsoft, any of its partners or its competitors for any studies/projects.
Biography
Mary-Jo Foley
Mary Jo Foley has covered the tech industry for 20 years for a variety of publications, including ZDNet, eWeek and Baseline. She has kept close tabs on Microsoft strategy, products and technologies for the past 10 years. In the late 1990s, she penned the award-winning "At The Evil Empire" column for ZDNet, and more recently the Microsoft Watch blog for Ziff Davis.
Got a tip? Send her an email with your rants, rumors, tips and tattles. Confidentiality guaranteed.
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Related Discussions on TechRepublic
Did you know you can take part in these discussions with your ZDNet membership?Talkback Most Recent of 255 Talkback(s)
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Hogwash!! Batterys don't suddenly go bad!
Batteries don't suddenly quit working unless an ourside influence is involved - Only an OS issue could cause the batteries to drain so fast so it would cause damage to the crystals in the batteries.
Linux All The Way02/08/2010 01:51 PM -
tux_engineer02/08/2010 02:02 PM -
All you Winders haters are sick puppies
You buy a Volkswagon, tire goes flat, who do you blame? Volkswagon of course, the haters blame game.
I'm a repair tech. I have YET to see Win 7 affect any laptops in any adverse way yet. Blame blame blame.
Crestview02/09/2010 08:19 AM -
His name suggest that he
repairs Tuxedos. Nothing wrong with being a tailor, but it would seem that computers aren't his fort?.
John Zern02/09/2010 08:51 AM -
Wintel_BSOD02/10/2010 06:12 AM -
rtk02/10/2010 07:57 AM -
What a moron... lol...
Looks like the Canadian idiot is backkkkkk....
lol... Wintel_BSOD02/10/2010 08:38 AM -
... dense stone.
I can see subtle wit slips you. I think we need some crayons and construction paper to explain the funny joke Wintel.
ariesghost02/10/2010 10:27 AM -
I can see that you're just as ignorant...
about penguins as well...
Next thing ya know, you'll try one on... lol... Wintel_BSOD(Edited: 02/10/2010 03:43 PM) -
Repair Tech o_O
Then as a "repair tech" you should know, improper power management by the OS CAN degrade battery performance and ultimately.. YES... battery life. And, it doesn't take long either, improper power management over the span of a few hours can degrade the battery in numerous ways. Usually not a fail or meltdown, but degradation nonetheless. It exaserbates over time.
Yup, same old story with M$. Used to be ".. no, your blue screen is because of your video card..." (yet other OSes work fine). Now, with their precious Windoze 7, ".. it isn't our software, it's your hardware.."
Same typical M$ feeding tube crap, different version.
NeoGraven02/09/2010 09:02 AM -
Same crap different ver
Ive been building and repairing PCs for 16 years now and have heard Mac zealots, Linux freaks say the same crap over and over everytime there is a new major Windows release/ver. They slam, flame Windows over and over and try and sell the Mac, Linux again and again.. Most Windows users ive ever seen don't go to Mac, Linux forums and start bashing Mac, Linux users because they choose to use the formats. I own 4 PC desktops and a 12" Mac ibook G4 I bought in 2006. I have had 1 problem with the G4 and that is when typing text, the cursor jumps behind text already typed and screws up text I am typing. Other than that its okay. Ive had problems with my PCs over the years. Hard drives that have died, motherboards that have died due topower surges. But the real issues at hand is Windows and not the hardware. As far as Linux is concerned, I am sure its not just only free and powerful but is an all around great operating system to run! But I have no interest in it and I am big enough that I dont have to sit here and slam it because I simply choose not to use it.
steveh9902/09/2010 05:38 PM -
jumping cursor
You may have already tried this, but if not it could help. Check your
System Preferences for Keyboard & Mouse to see if you have the button
checked for 'ignore trackpad input while typing'. I have the same problem
if that button isn't checked. The way I type my thumb sometimes hits the
trackpad while I type and I don't notice it until I look at what I typed and
everything is screwy.
Mr_Dave02/09/2010 08:47 PM -
Same crap, indeed.
Have you actually gone to a Linux forum to see if Windows users bash Linux?
In case you're interested, they do.
I provide support on Linux forums, and I get the bashers all the time.
Look. I'm a Linux guy. Not because of the OS in particular. Windows is great for what it does. Linux is great for what it does. Mac is great for what it does.
People should use what works for them. That's the power of choice.
My beef with Windows is not the OS, but with the business practices, hegemony and industry strangle-hold of its purveyor.
When Linux users on the forums bash Windows, I politely ask them to stop. Windows is a capable operating system. It works for millions of people. They are comfortable with it. That, in my opinion, is the real reason Windows users do not explore other OSes -- using what you know means a lot (as it should) and learning something new is difficult. If you have no real need to learn, why do it?
I make an obscene amount of money developing software for the Windows platform. I'm a Windows *****, and I admit it freely. Pragmatism is lucrative.
So, I can't bash Windows.
And yet, this particular little vignette does sound a lot like "Moi? Mais non!"
Anyone who says his s**t doesn't stink has never walked into a restroom they just left.
PaddyO02/09/2010 10:37 PM -
Well said PaddyO
There are many of us with the same opinions as you have expressed here. We all make/made money using WinOS but many of us prefer our individual choice of Linux distros.
Again, thanks for saying it so well.
sheevalazar02/10/2010 07:49 AM -
An intelligent post
Thanks, I'd begun to give up ever finding somebody
able to think about these issues using
intelligence rather than bias as there baseline.
wez@...02/10/2010 05:33 PM
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