Microsoft's Windows 7 chief: It's not us; it's your batteries

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?