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Microsoft Says Windows 7 Not Killing Batteries
VindictivePantz sends word that the Windows 7 team has posted a new blog entry discussing their conclusions about the reported Windows 7 battery failures. "To the very best of the collective ecosystem knowledge, Windows 7 is correctly warning batteries that are in fact failing and Windows 7 is neither incorrectly reporting on battery status nor in any way whatsoever causing batteries to reach this state. In every case we have been able to identify the battery being reported on was in fact in need of recommended replacement. ...every 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. ... We are as certain as we can be that we have addressed the root cause and concerns of this report, but we will continue to monitor the situation."
Just to play devil's advocate; are we sure it's not the battery or laptop manufacturers that are not admitting their mistake?
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
Fedora recently added a feature named palimpsest that checks your hard drive. I did an upgrade and all of a sudden I am getting complaints about my hard drive being close to failure. I think "no way, this is a pretty new drive". But I dig deeper and sure enough the drive really is bad.
Pretty similar to multi-tier software development, where business logic is developed separately from the user interface. I'm doing the latter and guess who gets all the bug reports?
Windows is not at fault. Hardware or 3rd party software always is
That's generally a fair assumption with any OS.
Win 7 has about eight to ten percent of the global market. OS Platform Statistics
That translates into a hell of a lot of laptops and a good many batteries that were well past there past their prime before Win 7 was installed. But there have been only a few hundred complaints.
No, not in a tool. I mean - pop-up warning "Hey, your hard drive is failing" without your intervention. Like the battery warning.
That's the OS which shipped with the "Microsoft ACPI Compliant Control Method Battery" device that frequently refused to charge batteries even when plugged in, in case you're wondering.
I wouldn't let Microsoft off the hook just yet. Lithium ion batteries need to be slow charged the last 10-15% of their charge cycle or they will be damaged. There are already known unfixed issues with the Vista/7 battery controller, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear some lithium ion batteries are failing through mismanaged charge cycles.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Is there any other trusted third party software that can be used to verify what Microsoft is saying?