A new blog post on Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) Building Windows 8 blog did a great job of detailing the work being done to better manage power in Windows 8. Pat Stemen, a program manager on the Windows 8 kernel team, elaborated on the goals and power management capabilities being built into Windows 8. In order to better illustrate the nuances of Windows power management, Stemen at one point did an inevitable comparison with Windows 7.

This is where it gets interesting, especially for users who opt for the clean installation route. Stemen wrote: "We have seen many systems where not enabling a single device's power management features can easily reduce total battery life by up to 25 percent!" Moreover, simply disabling the offending device in Device Manager is "almost equally bad" since most devices are initialized by firmware at their highest power modes by default, and hence "require a device driver to get them to a more nominal power consumption."

Ouch. While I do install relevant device drivers on my laptop, I admit to installing the bare minimum with the hope of reducing clutter. Looks like I'll have to be more particular about what I skip the next time around.

If you're keen to diagnose potential power issues on your machine, Stemen suggests using the built-in powercfg.exe utility in Windows 7 with the /ENERGY parameter. This is executed from the command prompt run under Administrator's privileges, and unless you specify otherwise, will conduct a number of tests over 60 seconds, generating a HTML energy report of your system.

I didn't find anything that surprised me when I ran the test, though my report did flag how the system's Wi-Fi radio power policy is not configured to use low-power mode and listed multiple USB nodes that were not entering suspend mode. (No surprise, since I configured the first setting myself, and am currently plugged into a docking station with a number of USB devices in active use.)

Ultimately, the advice for Windows 7 users is simple: Ensure that the latest device drivers are installed, even if you are not using them. So are you generally satisfied with the runtime of your laptop? I would love to hear about any tweaks and tricks that you may use via email, Twitter, or in the comments section below. - Paul Mah  (Twitter @paulmah)