Microsoft Says Windows 7 Not Killing Batteries 272
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."
Re:It would have been a story if... (Score:4, Interesting)
Just to play devil's advocate; are we sure it's not the battery or laptop manufacturers that are not admitting their mistake?
similar story with Fedora and hard drives (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Must be the newest OS fad (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Surprise (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Surprise (Score:4, Interesting)
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 [w3schools.com]
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.
Re:Surprise (Score:4, Interesting)
No, not in a tool. I mean - pop-up warning "Hey, your hard drive is failing" without your intervention. Like the battery warning.
Batteries and their lifespan (Score:3, Interesting)
Over the years as my number of rechargeable battery items have gone way up I'd like to think I'm somewhat familiar with the tech behind them. At the very least enough to use them well and do some basic troubleshooting when problems arise with them. And one of the main things I've observed lately is that sometimes it's the battery chargers that are ultimately the issue when problems start to become reoccurring.
I've had a 3 set cordless phone setup for about 5 years now and when they started to act up I got them all new batteries. Given that they had still been using the originals I figured ok problem solved. However not too long after using them with their new batteries they started to act up again. And it was a bit harder because the pattern was very hard to see.
While I'm sure that the original batteries were due for replacement the satellite chargers had stopped working properly. While the phones normally would stay in their normal charger that was not always the case which what threw me off at 1st. But I noticed that as long as I charged a phone in the main station it would work fine.
However the damage had been done and even my new batteries are not nearly as good as they should be. Extend what happened in my story to say a laptop where it's built in battery charging system has stopped working properly. Not only is the battery not getting a good charge it's likely being damaged in the process. Leading to Win7 telling people so even thou they think, "But I just got this thing a new battery!"
sure ... just like Toyota (Score:1, Interesting)
(Most) people weren't complaining that Windows 7 said their battery needed to be replaced when it didn't, they were complaining that their battery didn't need to be replaced before they operated it under Windows 7 and then their battery abruptly did need to be replaced once they started operating it under Windows 7.
So the MSDN team hasn't said anything contradicting the bug reports and hasn't (apparently) done the only thing that can identify whether the bug reports were or were not valid -- distribute a tool for use under Windows XP and Windows Vista to capture data on whether or not the battery needs replacement so that the pre-Windows 7 condition of the battery could be compared with the post-Windows 7 condition.
It's as if Toyota had issued a response to people's claims of sudden over-acceleration (almost none of the complaints alleged that Toyotas were accelerating from a standstill on their own) saying: "We've confirmed that in every case where the vehicle accelerated the operator's foot was pressing on the accelerator at the time the acceleration began so there is no fault." Well, duh, that wasn't the complaint.
Re:Surprise (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Verification? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:We need more honestly dumb software. (Score:3, Interesting)
Honestly dumb software would have solved that too.
When people bought new batteries and popped them in and they showed "this battery has [====65%=>----] of original capacity".