Microsoft is actively testing a new energy saver for Windows 11 that aims to improve laptop battery life or desktop power consumption by disabling power-intensive background applications. The new feature was detailed in a Windows Insider blog post and is currently accessible in Windows 11's latest Insider Canary build 26002.
"It is an easy way to extend battery life and reduce energy use by trading off some system performance," the blog post, by Windows Insider head Amanda Langowski and senior program manager Brandon LeBlanc, reads. It's early days, and we don't know what kind of performance impact this feature could have in a final release (nor how much it could improve battery life).
Clearly, there's a hardware tradeoff here. But a screenshot from Microsoft shows a label that reads "Reduce power consumption and increase battery life by limiting some background activities" suggest that work is being done on the software side, too.
