If you want to see the options for the powercfg utility, just type powercfg -? (you can use the forward slash / instead of the dash - if you prefer). This is designed more for system administrators, but it is super easy to use for our needs. Windows 10 includes a command-line utility for managing the power plans/schemes (“plan” and “scheme” are interchangeable here).

Note that several of these options require running the console as administrator. You can, of course, use the bundled cmd.exe Windows console app if you want. You can also download the Windows Terminal from the (Microsoft Store, here). It’s actively developed out in the open, (so you can see the code, file issues, and even contribute). Windows Terminal also supports several different consoles including cmd.exe, PowerShell, and The Windows Subsystem for Linux. You can zoom in and out using control-scroll, and you can copy or paste text just by selecting it and right-clicking. It has a portable JSON-based configuration file so you can easily bring it across machines, it supports background colors, transparency, images, emojis, and much more. In these examples, I’m using the excellent Windows Terminal, created by a team here at Microsoft in Windows & Devices. This utility lets you do a number of things related to power, like control power throttling for a specific application, tell you the reason Windows last woke up from sleep, list power schemes, and more. This makes use of the Windows powercfg utility. This is especially powerful, because you can create a small batch file and pin it to your desktop, Start Menu or task bar, and quickly switch between power plans on the fly. It’s not the quickest way to change plans, however. Super easy, and requires very little setup on your part. In the future, it may be located in the settings app or elsewhere. As of the time of this writing, the UI for additional power settings is in Control Panel.

You can launch the control panel UI from there. On the right, you’ll see “Additional power settings”. Open this UI by opening the settings app, navigating to System, and then “Power & Sleep”. Tip: I go through power plan / scheme settings for music production in my Windows 10 DAW tweak guide. You use (or create) two different power profiles based on your needs, and then use the radio buttons to make one of them active. In the end, I’ll show how to create a couple links to enable you to change the plan with a single click. There are a few ways to switch plans, but I’ll focus on two good options here. This can be useful if you use a laptop and want to maximize battery life (or simply minimize your energy usage) when doing normal work, but then have max performance available when working in your DAW. In response to my recent Windows 10 Audio Workstation Tweak Guide, I was asked about switching power plans on the fly.

Quickly switching your power plan/scheme on Windows 10

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