Power Management and ACPI
A comprehensive approach to system configuration and device power control is built into Microsoft Windows operating systems, based on the ACPI system interface and other new bus and device specifications.
Windows supports capabilities that can be exploited by drivers and applications to improve the user's computing experience.
In this section
| Topic | Description |
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Energy efficient hardware design and software implementation are critical for achieving extended battery life in mobile platforms. |
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In Windows Vista and later versions, device and driver vendors can define custom device-specific power settings that are integrated with the Windows Vista power plans. The AddPowerSetting directive in the driver's INF associates a power setting value with a friendly name, a description, and a globally unique identifier (GUID) and specifies default settings for each power personality in the system-defined power plans. The system displays the custom power settings on the Advanced Settings tab of the Control Panel Power Options application. |
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Microsoft requires a debug port on all systems running Windows. This specification describes the options available to OEMs to provide the required debug port. |
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The Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) Operating System Capabilities (_OSC) method is used to communicate which of the features or capabilities that are available in the platform can be controlled by the operating system. This method is defined in the ACPI Specification, Revision 4.0. |
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This topic contains resources you can use to ensure that your application works well with Windows Power Management. |
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This specification defines the format of the Debug Port Table 2 (DBG2), used in platform firmware to describe the debug ports available on the system. |
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This guide outlines issues and solutions for advancing battery life for portable computers that run the Windows 7 operating system. It provides system design, power policy guidelines, and preinstallation configuration recommendations as well as test configuration recommendations. |
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Windows Vista and later versions of Windows feature a new power policy storage mechanism and infrastructure called the power policy store that enables third-party extensibility and configuration using Windows Group Policy. |
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Processor power management in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 |
Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 include updated support for ACPI processor power management (PPM) features, including support for processor performance states and processor idle sleep states on multiprocessor systems. This topic provides details of the support in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, describes how PPM functions with the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 power policy store, and provides guidelines for firmware developers and system designers. |
This document defines the format of the Serial Port Console Redirection (SPCR) Table. This table is used to indicate whether a serial port or a non-legacy UART (Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter) interface is available for use with Microsoft Windows Emergency Management Services (EMS). |
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The Trustworthy Computing Group formalized the TPM 2.0 Hardware Interface Table in TCG ACPI Specification for Family 1.2 and 2.0, Revision 0.37. This is available on the Trustworthy Computing Group website. |
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With Windows Driver Foundation (WDF), drivers must have their read, write, and device I/O control requests handled by a WDF queue object. The queue object receives requests from the system and dispatches them to the driver's callback function. Other types of requests, such as Plug and Play and power management requests, can be handled directly by callback functions. |
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This article describes the process that system manufacturers (OEMs) can use to provide instrumentation information by including ACPI objects in the systems they build that will be recognized by Microsoft Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). This information applies for Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows 98 Second Edition. By including ACPI objects in the systems they build, OEMs can take advantage of a generic mapping driver that allows WMI to make the information available to the instrumentation consumers. |
See Also
| Topic | Description |
|---|---|
| Extended PSS ACPI Method Specification | The Extended PSS (XPSS) method is an ACPI method that allows platform firmware to generically describe a Model Specific Register (MSR)-based interface for processor performance state controls. This enables the use of the generic processor driver included with Windows, without requiring a specific Windows processor driver developed by Microsoft and designed expressly for the target platform. |
| Windows Hardware Error Architecture ACPI Table Specification | Windows Hardware Error Architecture (WHEA) is a hardware error handling architecture introduced in the Windows Server 2008 operating system. Four Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) tables are available for use with WHEA. The tables describe and provide hardware error handling capabilities of the hardware platform to the operating system. This specification provides details of the layout of these four tables, but does not include details on how to program or use the tables. This document is provided for designers who are planning server systems that will support WHEA. |
Related topics
Windows Power and Battery Subsystem Requirements
Best Practices for Energy Efficiency
PPM in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2
Supporting Brightness Controls on Integrated Display Panels
Selective suspend in USB drivers (WDF)
Building Energy-Smart Applications for Windows Vista (C#)