Windows 7 may prove to be a help to enterprises wanting to reduce their electricity bills --- Microsoft claims that power-savings features built directly into the operating system mean that PCs that run it will use less electricity than if they ran older versions of Windows.
The Engineering Windows 7 blog
spells out the power savings features built in Windows 7.
I won't go into all the nitty-gritty details, because some a lot of it is information that only an engineer could love. The upshot is this, though, according to the blog:
For Windows 7, we’re refining the user experiences for power management, focusing on reducing idle power consumption and supporting new device power modes.
The biggest issue Microsoft targeted was idle power consumption. Microsoft notes:
When truly idle, the processor power consumption can be as low as 100-300mW. But, when fully busy, the processor can consume up to 35W. This large range means that even small amounts of processor activity can have a significant impact on overall power consumption and battery life.
So Microsoft looked at better managing background services so that they only run when truly needed. This means that an idle PC should use less power.
In addition, Microsoft has targeted improving the way Windows manages the core processor as well as devices, notably USB devices. So far, the company hasn't given any estimates about how much power Windows 7 will save compared to previous versions of Windows, so we'll have to wait for final release to get any true comparisons.
