I’m a Windows 7 user because some of the programs I use on a daily basis arent available under Linux (if so I would have switched to Ubuntu or Linux Mint a long time ago). Shortly after upgrading from Vista to Windows 7 I noticed that the operating system reported that there was a problem with my laptop battery and that I should replace it. I also noticed that my battery life was down to a mere one hour compared to the two and half hour of juice available under Vista. But I never gave much attention to it. Most batteries start to degrade after their first year and I certainly didnt link it to the upgrade to Windows 7. I thought my laptop battery was wearing out and since I’m mostly hooked up on the powernet I dont use it that much anyway. However only recently I read that a lot of Windows 7 users are experiencing the same issue and are complaining that their battery life is being killed by Windows 7. Microsoft has investigated this problem and has come with a statement.

If you are experiencing the same issue you will have seen the following notification in the taskbar.

On the MSDN blog Microsoft has posted a statement that Windows 7 is correctly reporting the battery status and people who see this notification should indeed replace their battery. Microsoft stated they have investigated the matter and that in all cases the replacement notification was correct. They also go into technical details how this new Windows 7 feature works but I cant help wondering considering my own experiences and the reports of other users that something is wrong. In a reaction to the MSDN posting a user called Dan Lee is saying that Windows is using the wrong parameters for calculating the battery status and it seems more users dont take the statement from Miscrosoft for granted. I’m sure we will be hearing more about this the next few weeks.

I found a great little tool to get more information about your laptop battery. You might wanna check it out as well, it’s completely free to use and it’s called Battery Care.

It would be great to hear if more people are experiencing this issue and what your findings are if you have investigated it yourself.